I thought it would be useful to identify legislative data projects in advance of the House’s annual Legislative Data and Transparency Conference and #Hack4Congress, a congressional hackathon we are co-hosting with our friends the OpenGov Foundation. I have written about some ideas previously, and others are newly published or elaborations. Not all are mine, but I like them all.Continue Reading
CDC Submits Testimony to Senate Appropriators, Outlines Next Steps for Legislative Data
On Friday, March 27th, the Congressional Data Coalition and allies submitted testimony to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch. In the testimony, we commend he Senate for committing to publishing bill status, summary, and text in a structured-data format that is capable of download in bulk. We also requested the Senate continue down the path of public access to legislative information by addressing the following issues:
- Extend and broaden the Bulk Data Task Force
- Publish the Congressional Record in XML and eliminate electronic publication gaps
- Publish a complete and auditable archive of bill text, in a structured electronic format
- Instantiate a Senate-wide committee record publishing system
- Publish a contemporaneous list of widely-distributed CRS reports that contains the report name, publication/revision/withdrawal date, and report ID number
- Release widely-distributed CRS reports to the public
- Publish Bioguide in XML with a change log
- Publish the Constitution Annotated in a machine readable format
- Publish Senate office and support agency reports online
- Publish Senate Expenditure Reports in a machine-readable format
We previously submitted testimony on the FY 2016 congressional budget to the House of Representatives.
Save the Date: House Legislative Data and Transparency Conference April 29
The House of Representatives will be holding its 2015 Legislative Data and Transparency Conference on April 29th at the CVC. The public is invited. I will post more information as it becomes available.
Also, please remember that the OpenGov Foundation is holding a legislative data hackathon in DC running from the 29th to May 1st (which we are co-sponsoring). More information on the hackathon is here.
Update: RSVP here. Invitation below.Continue Reading
Congressional Data Coalition Applauds House Legislative Data Transparency Efforts, Asks for More
On March 6, the Congressional Data Coalition and allies submitted testimony to the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Committee regarding its 2016 appropriation that applauded recent progress in making legislative data more open while urging additional reforms. It is worth repeating the significant progress that has been made and our recommendations for the future, so please find a summary below. The full testimony is here. Continue Reading
Meet us in Austin: SXSW Panel “Your Laws, Your Data”
Members of the Congressional Data Coalition will be headlining a SXSW panel entitled: “Your Laws, Your Data: Making Government More Open.” Join us on Friday, March 13 from 12:30-1:30 in room Room 10AB at the Austin Convention Center. Speakers include Daniel Schuman, Congressional Data Coalition co-chair; Molly Schwartz, associate fellow, R Street Institute; Molly Bohmer, data curator, Cato Institute ;and Rebecca Williams, policy analyst, data.gov. Continue Reading
House of Representatives Places an Order for Legislative Data Transparency
When the House of Representatives adopted new rules for the 114th Congress, it took an unprecedented step forward. As part of the orders for the new Congress, the House committed to broadening the availability of legislative documents in machine readable formats. As Joe Biden might say, this is a big freaking deal.
The Committee on House Administration, the Clerk, and other officers and officials of the House shall continue efforts to broaden the availability of legislative documents in machine readable formats in the One Hundred Fourteenth Congress in furtherance of the institutional priority of improving public availability and use of legislative information produced by the House and its committees.
In plain English, the House will do more to make sure information about what it does is available to journalists, non profits, and the general public. As it turns out, most people get information about Congress from third parties, so this will greatly expand access to information about Congress. It also is the latest in a series of moves to expand smart publication of legislative information.
Of course, we at the Congressional Data Coalition have recommendations on what the House should do. Continue Reading
Join Us at #Hack4Congress in SF and DC
The Congressional Data Coalition is pleased to join our friends in co-sponsoring #Hack4Congress in San Francisco on March 21-22 and Washington, DC on April 29-May 1. What is it? Well…
Here’s logistical information:Continue Reading
Advisory Committee on Transparency event: Make Your Job Easier With Open Government Tools
Wednesday, February 18th, 2015 from 2:30 to 4:30 P.M. in room 2203 of the Rayburn House Office Building
Open government is vital for public accountability. But, it also fuels tools that can make congressional staff more efficient, improve oversight activities, protect whistleblowers and more. Hear from experts in the open government field — including current and former congressional staff — as they share tools, tips, and tricks to make you more effective on the job.
RSVP Snlg.Ht/OpenGovTools
Speakers include:
- Shanna Devine, Legislative Director, Government Accountability Project will discuss how to help whistleblowers navigate the disclosure process and protect themselves
- Daniel Epstein, Executive Director, Cause of Action will explore theories of oversight and specific tools that can make oversight more effective
- Hudson Hollister, Executive Director, Data Transparency Coalition will explore several tools powered by open government data
- Seamus Kraft, Executive Director, The OpenGov Foundation will explain how to use Madison to collaboratively draft legislation and policy in the open
- Amy Ngai, Partnerships and Training Director, Sunlight Foundation will show off how Scout can be used to track legislation, regulations, court decisions, and more
- Justin Rood, Director of the Congressional Oversight Initiative, the Project on Government Oversight will discuss his program and how it can be useful to Congressional staff
- Reynold Schweickhardt, Director of Technology Policy, Committee on House Administration will discuss a variety of efforts underway in the House to improve digital workflow and regularize committee information
by Matt Rumsey. Cross-posted from the Advisory Committee on Transparency.
Legislative Appropriations Calendar for FY 2016
Every year, House and Senate Appropriators hold hearing and mark-up legislation on funding for the legislative branch. This is a continuously updated list of meetings and documents.Continue Reading
Senate Joins House In Publishing Legislative Information In Modern Formats
There’s big news from today’s Legislative Branch Bulk Data Task Force meeting. The United States Senate announced it would begin publishing text and summary information for Senate legislation, going back to the 113th Congress, in bulk XML. It would join the House of Representatives, which already does this. Both chambers also expect to have bill status information available online in XML format as well, but a little later on in the year.
This move goes a long way to meet the request made by a coalition of transparency organizations, which asked for legislative information be made available online, in bulk, in machine-processable formats. These changes, once implemented, will hopefully put an end to screen scraping and empower users to build impressive tools with authoritative legislative data. A meeting to spec out publication methods will be hosted by the Task Force in late January/early February.
The Senate should be commended for making the leap into the 21st century with respect to providing the American people with crucial legislative information. We will watch closely to see how this is implemented and hope to work with the Senate as it moves forward.
In addition, the Clerk of the House announced significant new information will soon be published online in machine-processable formats. This includes data on nominees, election statistics, and members (such as committee assignments, bioguide IDs, start date, preferred name, etc.) Separately, House Live has been upgraded so that all video is now in H.264 format. The Clerk’s website is also undergoing a redesign.
The Office of Law Revision Counsel, which publishes the US Code, has further upgraded its website to allow pinpoint citations for the US Code. Users can drill down to the subclause level simply by typing the information into their search engine. This is incredibly handy.
The Library of Congress is continuing to upgrade Congress.gov and copying all content over from THOMAS. Information expected to be available on Congress.gov in early 2015 information includes the Federalist papers and video streams for committees. Some work remains to be done, including moving over bill information from the late 80s to early 90s, senate executive branch communications, and the appropriations’ citation tables. All materials are not expected to be ported over to Congress.gov until after the close of FY 2015 (which is October 1.)
The Amendment Impact Program, which shows how a bill would amend the law and an amendment would affect a bill, is still under construction. The next step to bringing this program online is to embed the process into the workflow for the House Rules Committee to make sure it works properly. The FY 2015 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill, which just was enacted into law as part of the CRomnibus, provides a steady source of funding for these efforts.
All in all, these are wonderful developments. House and Senate staff, as well as those as legislative support agencies, should be commended for their hard work. We are looking forward to seeing what the new year brings.
Update: Here’s a few press releases and celebratory blogposts:
And video from the announcement.