Category Archives: Blog

Congress Poised for Leap to Open Up Legislative Data

Following bills in Congress requires three major pieces of information: the text of the bill, a summary of what the bill is about, and the status information associated with the bill. For the last few years, Congress has been publishing the text and summaries for all legislation moving in Congress, but has not published bill status information. This key information is necessary to identify the bill author, where the bill is in the legislative process, who introduced the legislation, and so on.

While it has been in the works for a while, this week Congress confirmed it will make “Bill Statuses in XML format available through the GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys) Bulk Data repository starting with the 113th Congress,” (i.e. January 2013).  In “early 2016,” bill status information will be published online in bulk– here. This should mean that people who wish to use the legislative information published on Congress.gov and THOMAS will no longer need to scrape those websites for current legislative information, but instead should be able to access it automatically. Continue reading →

Second Congressional Hackathon a Great Success

On Friday, the House of Representatives held its second Congressional Hackathon, co-hosted by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer.InHackWeTrust flag

The major, unstated purpose of the hackathon was to bring people together to sustain the effort to modernize technology in congress. The hackathon did exactly that, gathering congressional staff, legislative support staff, and members of the public to build those relationships in a constructive atmosphere. It was an incredible success. Continue reading →

House Open Source Caucus Launch Event

As we previously discussed, there’s a new Open Source Technology Caucus launching in the U.S. House of Representatives. And there’s a launch party tomorrow! Details from our friends at the OpenGov Foundation:

Please join The OpenGov Foundation in celebrating the official launch of the House Open Source Caucus, led by Congressmen Jared Polis and Blake Farenthold. The Open Source Caucus has been leading the way in incorporating new open source technology in the House of Representatives since June’s announcement that, for the first time, Members, Committees, and staff within the House of Representatives are permitted to use and contribute to open source software.

We are excited to support the Open Source Caucus in their work, and invite you to celebrate their strong start.

WHEN
WHERE
Innovation House – 21 D St. SE Washington, DC 20003

RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/house-open-source-caucus-launch-tickets-19060357041

More info on Congressional Hackathon

Today Reps. Hoyer and McCarthy released more information on the upcoming Congressional Hackathon. Here is the press release. The Congressional Data Coalition will be hosting a happy hour afterward.

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD-5) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA-23) today announced details of the upcoming Second Congressional Hackathon that will take place next week on Friday, October 23, 2015 from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm in the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Continue reading →

Counting Up Congressional Technology Spending for 2014 – The U.S. Senate

How much does the United States Congress spend on technology and digital media?

It is a devilishly simple question, but I have yet to find a clear answer after nearly seven years working in and around the legislative branch. Finding the answer is a critical early step, however, in building an efficient, effective Congress that can fulfill its responsibilities in the 21st Century. That is something in which all Americans have a stake.

Does Congress spend the proper amount on technology? Is that money being spent on the correct technology products, vendors, and services? These are far more important questions that grow more pressing each day — constituent mail volume rose 548% between 2002-2010, while office resources to deal with it have been slashed 21% since 2011, according to the House Appropriations Committee.

This is the new normal. Yet without accurate spending information, you are stuck guessing as to the best way to deal with this new reality, whether you work on or off Capitol Hill. Moreover, those outside Congress who care about improving the legislative branch – as we do at The OpenGov Foundation – can only provide the right support at the right time to the right people in Congress if we know how and where to help.

Fortunately, groundbreaking work done by the Congressional Management Foundation, the Brookings Institution and American Enterprise Institute, the Congressional Data Coalition, the Sunlight Foundation, and others has supplied some critical pieces of the puzzle. The following is inspired by them and their vital research. If you want to build off my work, you can find source data, crunched numbers, and methodology at the end of this post.

Right now, discussions are underway on and off Capitol Hill about what direction Congress should take with technology, data and staff. No one has the answer, but there are many amazing people in and around Congress working together towards one; it is my hope that this initial analysis will contribute to these efforts. Continue reading →

Library of Congress, GPO Should Publish the Digitized Congressional Record

At a meeting in April, the Government Publishing Office announced its collaboration with the Library of Congress to digitize all bound volumes of the Congressional Record from 1873-1998. The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress.

The digitization project is pursuant to a 2010 Joint Committee on Printing letter. GPO explained at the April meeting that it had digitized all of the volumes and the “[Library Services and Content Management business unit] was in the acquisitions process for the next step of reviewing the digital content and creating descriptive metadata.”

GPO and the Library should release the digitized volumes now. Even without metadata, the Congressional Record could be searched and put to other uses. Other digitization projects concerning documents held by the Library have taken years while descriptive metadata was created. By contrast, a volunteer-led effort to create descriptive metadata for the Statutes of Large took a matter of months and cost the government nothing.  Continue reading →

Save the Date: Second Congressional Hackathon Oct. 23

The Second Congressional Hackathon will take place at the U.S. Capitol on October 23 from 10-5. Hosted by Majority Leader McCarthy and Democratic Whip Hoyer, the hackathon is intended to explore how we can modernize Congress–from open data to updating constituent engagement.

To RSVP, go here.

The First Congressional Hackathon–#InHackWeTrust–was a great event, with tons of information about the ongoing work of the House and, equally as important, it presented a fantastic opportunity for real conversations between staff, technologists, and advocates. I wrote about it here.

With the same offices behind this hackathon, we have high hopes. Since the first congressional hackathon, there has been a series of public meetings and conferences hosted by the Clerk of the House, the launch of new pro-transparency congressional policies and tools, the creation of the open source caucus, and a civil society-organized congressional hackathon entitled #Hack4Congress. With so many new resources available (and more coming soon), and a spirit of cooperation between congressional staff and the public, I cannot wait to see what can be accomplished.

We will post more information as it becomes available.

Congressional Open Source Technology Caucus Launches

Reps. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) and Jared Polis (D-CO) announced the formation of the Congressional Open Source Technology Caucus last week and are looking for other representatives to serve as founding members. This comes after a June announcement that open source software is now permitted in the House of Representatives. Continue reading →