(Cross-posted from DanielSchuman.com) Here is a rundown of free digital tools any self-respecting congressional staffer, Member of Congress, journalist, or public advocate should consider using. All are free, run on information published by Congress or cobbled together from official sources, and most are built on open source code. (Many of the developers are members of […]
Continue reading... December 1, 2014
Save the Date: 1st of 2 Multidisciplinary Hackathons on U.S. Congressional Data & Processes
Boston Kickoff Weekend Co-Hosted by Harvard University’s Ash Center and The OpenGov Foundation; Finals on Capitol Hill Spring 2015 The weekend of January 30, 2015, The OpenGov Foundation and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government will host a multi-disciplinary hackathon to design what the future of the US Congress should look like. The event will bring […]
Continue reading... November 25, 2014
Collection of CRS reports released to the public
Something rare has occurred—a collection of reports authored by the Congressional Research Service has been published and made freely available to the public. The 400-page volume, titled, “The Evolving Congress,” and was produced in conjunction with CRS’s celebration of its 100th anniversary this year. Congress, not CRS, published it. (Disclaimer: Before departing CRS in October, […]
Continue reading... September 18, 2014
Opengov groups call on legislatures around the globe to embrace open data
(via Sunlight) Sunlight is thrilled to mark Global Legislative Openness Week with our global legislative transparency campaign, which culminated earlier this week in a joint letter from the world’s parliamentary monitoring organizations (PMOs) sent to national legislatures across the globe. The letter calls for increased legislative transparency and parliamentary open data, and affirms the importance of legislative […]
Continue reading... September 18, 2014
Publish the Constitution Annotated as Data
Dear Library of Congress and Government Printing Office, For decades, you have jointly published a handy compendium that explains the U.S. Constitution as it has been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. It took a couple of letters from the Senate (and repeated nudging from the public interest community—2009, 2010,2011, 2012, 2013) to move you to publish the Constitution Annotatedonline more than once […]
Continue reading... August 15, 2014
Vote for us at SXSW
The Congressional Data Coalition is proud to be sponsoring a panel proposal at SXSW Interactive next year in Austin, TX. The PanelPicker voting process is open now until September 6th at midnight. Your vote will help us get our ideas out at Austin’s annual gathering of 30,000 technologists, activists, and entrepreneurs. Speakers include: Molly Schwartz, R Street Institute; Rebecca Williams, Sunlight Foundation; Molly […]
Continue reading... August 5, 2014
Half a trillion unaccounted for on federal spending transparency website
The federal government can’t find $619 billion dollars on the website it built six years ago to give a transparent account of its spending activities. USA Today‘s Gregory Korte has the full story: A government website intended to make federal spending more transparent is missing at least $619 billion from 302 federal programs, a government audit has […]
Continue reading... June 4, 2014
House Concludes Third Annual Legislative Data and Transparency Conference
(Cross-posted from CREW) Last week, the House of Representatives held its third annual Legislative Data and Transparency Conference. The full-day symposium, which took place in the U.S. Capitol, featured speakers from inside and outside government who discussed efforts to make more legislative information available to the public, particularly in machine-readable formats. The event was sponsored […]
Continue reading... May 22, 2014
Transparency and Legislative Data Happy Hour
On behalf of the Congressional Data Coalition, you are invited to a Transparency and Legislative Data Happy Hour this upcoming Thursday, May 29, from 5ish to 7. We will get started right after the House of Representative’s 2014 Legislative Data and Transparency Conference ends. Location: Bullfeathers, on Capitol Hill, just south of the Cannon House […]
Continue reading... May 22, 2014
Democracy and open data: are the two linked?
Are democracies better at practicing open government than less free societies? To find out, I analyzed the 70 countries profiled in the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Open Data Index and compared the rankings against the 2013 Global Democracy Rankings. As a tenet of open government in the digital age, open data practices serve as one indicator […]
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