#HouseOfCode Clear your schedule Tuesday, April 4th, from 4:30-7:30 to celebrate the accomplishments of 123 Members of Congress who participated in the 2016 Congressional App Challenge. Located at the Rayburn House Office Building, this reception and demo day will feature remarks from Reps. Goodlatte, Eshoo, Royce, and Moulton. RSVP here! CodeX FutureLaw 2017 On April […]
Continue reading... February 8, 2017
The House Rules Should be Publicly Available in Advance of Their Adoption
At the start of the 115th Congress, there was a fight over whether the Office of Congressional Ethics should continue its existence. I won’t get into the merits of the disagreement here (although I’ve written about it elsewhere), but how it occurred is interesting. The Office of Congressional Ethics is one of the many offices and […]
Continue reading... February 8, 2017
The House of Representatives Orders Seconds on Legislative Transparency
Once again, at the start of the 115th Congress, the House of Representatives included an order in its rules package in support of public access to legislative information. (m) BROADENING AVAILABILITY OF LEGISLATIVE DOCUMENTS IN MACHINE-READABLE FORMATS.—The Committee on House Administration, the Clerk, and other officers and officials of the House shall continue efforts to […]
Continue reading... December 12, 2016
Ending GovTrack’s bulk data and API
Open legislative data has been a core part of GovTrack’s mission since 2005, when there wasn’t very much of it. We were the first to provide comprehensive information about Congress’s legislative activities in an open, structured data format — a technical format that software developers (building websites and apps), journalists, and researchers used for new […]
Continue reading... October 21, 2016
Why I Came To Believe CRS Reports Should be Publicly Available (and Built a Website to Make it Happen)
I first started working for Congress as a senate intern in September 2001. I was 23 years old and had no experience working on policy. I found myself responding to letters from constituents on issues that I’d never heard of previously. It was then that I first encountered the Congressional Research Service and its reports. […]
Continue reading... October 21, 2016
Five bad arguments against public access to CRS reports
This week the progressive organization Demand Progress, along with the Congressional Data Coalition, launched EveryCRSReport.com. This new project site makes available, with the help of friendly Congressional offices, all Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports on Congress’ own internal site. The public now has access to more than 8,200 reports in one searchable database (you can […]
Continue reading... October 20, 2016
It’s Time To Make Taxpayer-Funded Congressional Reports Available To The Public
This piece was originally published in the Daily Caller and co-authored by R Street Institute technology policy program director Zach Graves. American taxpayers support the $140 million a year expenditures of the Congressional Research Service, an independent and highly influential think tank housed within the Library of Congress. The agency’s mission is to advise members and committees […]
Continue reading... October 4, 2016
House launches a public-facing phone directory for all staff
As promised at the 2016 Legislative Data and Transparency Conference, the House of Representatives launched a public-facing phone directory for all its staff. This is a tremendously useful tool. It provides authentic, up-to-date information on the people who work in the people’s house. While it (reasonably) does not contain email addresses, it has phone numbers, […]
Continue reading... August 29, 2016
Kudos to House of Reps. for Releasing its Spending Info as Data
Today the House of Representatives published its spending information as structured data (a CSV) in addition to printing three volumes of tables. This is the second time it has done so. (I wrote about it the last time it happenedand why it is important for accountability.) Okay, Senate, it’s your turn. Publish your semi-annual spending […]
Continue reading... August 2, 2016
The Constitution (Annotated) In Your Pocket
After a powerful speech by Khizr Khan at the Democratic National Convention, sales of pocket U.S. Constitutions have skyrocketed, becoming the second best selling book on Amazon. This is great! But the words of the Constitution are unsufficient to provide an understanding into how it has been applied by the courts over the last two […]
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