The Open House Project released its report today for a series of technological reforms that would increase transparency and public access to the work and members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
- Congressional Information & the Internet The OpenHouse Project May 8, 2007
Congress can expand the impact and functioning of the full range of its work by recognizing the transformative power of simple technological reforms that can create an open, public and fully transparent institution. This in turn can create a civically empowered and meaningfully aware public and enable a connection between constituents and legislators that can deepen the national discourse.
To address the coming opportunities and challenges of an increasingly connected political environment, Congress should engage in an ongoing discourse with the public and commit to creating a truly transparent legislature.
The Open House Project—a collaborative online project of the Sunlight Foundation—has identified the following as providing opportunities for reform:
- Legislation Database—publish legislative data in structured formats
- Preserving Congressional Information—protect congressional information through archiving and distribution
- Congressional Committees—recognize committees as a public resource by making committee information available online
- Congressional Research Service—share non-partisan research beyond Congress
- Member Web-Use Restrictions—permit members to take full advantage of internet resources
- Citizen Journalism Access—grant House access to non-traditional journalists
- The Office of the Clerk of the House—serve as a source for digital disclosure information
- The Congressional Record—maintain the veracity of a historical document
- Congressional Video—create open video access to House proceedings
- Coordinating Web Standards—commit to technology reform as an administrative priority
FGI participated in this project and contributed to the report.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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