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...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...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...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...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 […]
Continue reading...Congress at a Glance
What is Congress doing this week? The answer to this question—an assortment of hearings and markups in the House and Senate—is surprisingly difficult to find. A few publications sell this information to congressional insiders with money to burn, but only recently has a comprehensive free source of this information become available. The privately-run congressional website […]
Continue reading...Congressional Data Coalition asks Senate to publish legislative info in digital formats
Earlier today, the Congressional Data Coalition submitted testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee on improving public access to legislative information. The coalition made two requests. First, we asked the Senate to concur with legislative language passed by the House of Representatives and direct the secretary of the Senate to work to implement bulk access to […]
Continue reading...Federal News Radio interview on the Congressional Data Coalition
Earlier today, Emily Kopp of Federal News Radio interviewed Congressional Data Coalition chairman Daniel Schuman about the launch of the coalition and a recent victory in the House of Representatives. Listen here.
Continue reading...Public access vs. open access
“Doesn’t Congress already make its information publicly accessible?” That’s the question I hear most frequently when I tell people about the Congressional Data Coalition’s mission to get Congress to provide open access to its data. “Open access” is a complicated and loaded term in the digital information world, but at its core it involves three […]
Continue reading...Big step for public access to legislation
Earlier today, the House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee made a major move towards improving public access to legislative information. In layman’s terms, the committee said that by the beginning of the next Congress information about the disposition of bills—where they are in the legislative process and who authored or co-sponsored the legislation—will be published in […]
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