In a new letter to the House this month, we joined 18 other organizations and individuals in calling for access to the legislative data on bill status that Congress has but won’t share. The letter was sent by the new Congressional Data Coalition, formed this month of citizens, public interest groups, trade associations, and businesses […]

When the legislative branch started publishing bills and resolutions online in 1995, it was heralded as a revolution in government transparency. The public at last had easy and immediate access to the text of legislation and citizens could better hold their elected officials accountable. But technology has progressed quite a distance since then, and the […]

After my last post yesterday about Congress incorrectly counting the new laws in 2013, Daniel Schuman (of CREW) suggested that I look at previous installments of the Resume of Congressional Activity to see if there were other long-standing discrepancies in these historical counts of the number of laws passed by each Congress. I went through each of […]

1844 The message, “What hath God wrought?” sent later by “Morse Code” from the old Supreme Court chamber in the United States Capitol to Samuel Morse’s partner in Baltimore, officially opened the completed telegraph line of May 24, 1844. (1) 1845 The private firm, Little, Brown, and Company, began publishing the Statutes at Large under […]