General Resources
- The Legislative Branch Innovation Hub, maintained by the Government Publishing Office. It contains resources on the Legislative process and congressional events focused on publication of legislative data.
- The United States Project Github repository, maintained by a coalition of organizations and individuals. It contains significant amount of data and tools concerning legislative information.
Major reports and documents concerning the publication of legislative data in bulk
- “Legislative Branch Bulk Data Task Force Report of Activities,” Legislative Branch Bulk Data Task Force (December 31, 2012). See House Hearing, 113th Congress, Part 2 – Legislative Branch Appropriations for 2014, page 678.
- “On Public Access to Legislative Information: Recommendations to the Bulk Data Task Force,” Coalition of Transparency Organizations (August 24, 2012) [LINK IS BROKEN]
- “Availability of THOMAS Data: Letter from Library of Congress to Committee on House Administration,” Library of Congress (March 31, 2008)
- “The Open House Project,” Coalition of Transparency Organizations (May 8, 2007)
- “Informing the Nation: Federal Information Dissemination in an Electronic Age,” Office of Technology Assessment (October 1988)
Quick facts
- A coalition of organizations issues the Open House Report calling on Congress to “embrace structured data by publishing the status of legislation and other information to the Web not only as it is now, but also in structured data formats.” (May 2007).
- The Explanatory Statement accompanying the Committee Print of the House Committee on Appropriations for Public Law 111-8 (March 2009) articulates Congress’ support for bulk access to legislative information. See the Committee print at p. 1770 (Joint Committee Report 111-4749).
- In 2008, the Library of Congress said it expected to report on the resources necessary to supply the public with raw legislative data within the first part of the calendar year. It established a bulk data task force that had not, to date, completed its deliberations.
- Rep. Bill Foster introduced the Legislative Data Transparency and Public Access Act of 2010, HR 6289 (111th Congress), which would require some legislative data to be made available in bulk and create a THOMAS advisory committee. (Sep. 2010)
- Congressional Facebook Hackathon endorsed bulk access to legislative data as an action item: “Release Structured Machine-Readable Legislative Data: Providing legislative data in a bulk format to enable third-party developers to create more dynamic interfaces for legislative information.” (November 2011) (See this event write-up.)
- 30 organizations and companies call for bulk access to legislative data and the creation of an advisory committee. (April 6, 2012)
Legislative resources
- House of Representatives Rules for the 114th Congress order on broadening the availability of legislative documents in machine readable formats, H Res 5, summarized in this blogpost.
- House Legislative Branch Appropriations FY 2015 Report, H Rpt. 113-417, in which on p. 5 the Clerk of the House, the Librarian of Congress and the Public Printer are requested to work together to make available to the public through Congress.gov or FdSys bulk data downloads of bill status by the beginning of the next Congress. (April 17, 2014)
- “House Leaders Back Bulk Access to Legislative Information” Speaker Boehner Press Office (June 5, 2012)
- Amendment Offered to H.R. 5882, by Rep. Issa (R-CA) (June 5, 2012)
- House of Representatives Adopts Standards for Electronic posting of House and committee documents and data (committee resolution as PDF) (document naming conventions as PDF) (December 2011)
- Legislative Data Transparency and Public Access Act of 2010, H.R. 6289 (111th Congress)
Civil society organization resources
- Testimony for the Record, by Daniel Schuman, sent on behalf of the Congressional Data Coalition, regarding the FY 2021 Legislative Branch Budget, submitted to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch (April 2020).
- Testimony for the Record, by Daniel Schuman, sent on behalf of the Congressional Data Coalition, regarding the FY 2021 Legislative Branch Budget, submitted to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch.
- Testimony for the Record, by Daniel Schuman, sent on behalf of the Congressional Data Coalition, regarding the FY 2020 Legislative Branch Budget, submitted to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch.
- Testimony for the Record, by Josh Tauberer, sent on behalf of the Congressional Data coalition, regarding the FY 2020 Legislative Branch Budget, submitted to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch.
- Testimony for the Record, by Daniel Schuman, sent on behalf of the Congressional Data coalition, regarding the FY 2020 Legislative Branch Budget, submitted to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch.
- Testimony for the Record, by Josh Tauberer, sent on behalf of the Congressional Data Coalition, regarding the FY 2019 Legislative Branch Budget, submitted to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch (April 2018).
- Testimony for the Record, by Daniel Schuman, sent on behalf of the Congressional Data Coalition, regarding the FY 2017 Legislative Branch Budget, submitted to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch (March 22, 2016)
- Testimony for the Record, by Daniel Schuman and Zach Graves, sent on behalf of the Congressional Data Coalition, regarding the FY 2016 Legislative Branch Budget, submitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch (March 27, 2015).
- Testimony for the Record, by Daniel Schuman and Zach Graves, sent on behalf of the Congressional Data Coalition, regarding the FY 2016 Legislative Branch Budget, submitted to the House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch (March 6, 2015).
- Testimony for the Record by Josh Tauberer and Daniel Schuman, sent on behalf of the Congressional Data Coalition, regarding the FY 2015 Legislative Branch Budget, submitted to the Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch (April 30, 2014)
- Testimony for the Record by Josh Tauberer and Daniel Schuman, sent on behalf of the Congressional Data Coalition, regrading the FY 2015 Legislative Branch Budget, submitted to the House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch (March 7, 2014)
- Letter to Speaker Boehner by Josh Tauberer regarding bulk access to legislative data (August 14, 2013)
- Comments Submitted for the Record by the Sunlight Foundation for the Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch regarding bulk access to legislative information (May 24, 2013) [LINK IS BROKEN]
- Comments Submitted for the Record by the Sunlight Foundation for the House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch regarding bulk access to legislative information (March 29, 2013) [LINK IS BROKEN]
- On Public Access to Legislative Information: Recommendations to the Bulk Data Task Force,” Coalition of Transparency Organizations (August 24, 2012) [LINK IS BROKEN]
- Declaration on Parliamentary Openness (August 29, 2012)
- 30 Organizations Send Letters to Appropriators and Rulemakers regarding bulk access to THOMAS (April 10, 2012) [LINKS ARE BROKEN]
- Comments Submitted for the Record by Joshua Tauburer for House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch regarding bulk data for legislative information (February 6, 2012)
- Comments Submitted for the Record by the Sunlight Foundation for the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch Hearing (February 6, 2012) [LINK IS BROKEN]
- Publication Practices for Transparency Government, The Cato Institute (September 23, 2011)
- Comments Submitted for the Record by the Sunlight Foundation for the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch Hearing Regarding Bulk Access to THOMAS data (May 11, 2011)
- “Authentication of Primary Legal Materials and Pricing Options,” California’s Office of Legislative Counsel (December 2011) (additional resources available here from Minnesota)
