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Wow! xkcd maps Congress’s political leanings since the start of the republic
Randall Munroe has outdone himself. XKCD, the "webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language," just posted another amazing, wall-sized infographic, this one depicting the historical ideological swings of left, right and center of the US Senate and House of Representatives (here are Randall's other *huge* and hugely fascinating infographics).
Be sure to read the side boxes and especially the one on methodology of how ideology was calculated. He meticulously accounts for the historical shift in the left/right spectrum between Republicans and Democrats.
That is all.
[HT BoingBoing!] Continue reading
GovTrack 2.0
Josh Tauberer has announced changes to his wonderful GovTrack website and service.
- We’ve made a few "tweaks" to GovTrack, by Josh Tauberer, GovTrack blog, (March 19, 2012). ...there are some things missing from GovTrack 2.0 that were in the old site, and if you need them you can still find them for now at http://legacy.govtrack.us, which continues to run the old site. I apologize for discontinuing some features, such as information on amendments, but with the site’s tiny budget I’m just not able to keep everything running at once...
- GovTrack. GovTrack helps you find the status of U.S. federal legislation, voting records for the Senate and House of Representatives, information on Members of Congress, and congressional district maps. Much of the information shown on GovTrack is assembled in an automated way from official government websites. primarily the website THOMAS which is the official website for the status of legislation run by the Library of Congress.
Congressionally Mandated Reports Act (ACMRA) Heads to House Floor
Legislation that would require copies of congressionally mandated reports to be published online by GPO cleared a major hurdle when it unanimously passed the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform at a business meeting on Wednesday. The "Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act," introduced by Rep. Mike Quigley and joined by 12 co-sponsors, will now advance to the floor of the House of Representatives. "Access to Congressionally Advances to the House Floor" by Daniel Schuman, Sunlight Foundation (June 23, 2011). Continue reading
“U.S. Congress/NARA: “National Archives May Digitize Searches”
Via INFOdocket Roll Call reports: The National Archives could be just months away from starting a long-planned project to create for the first time a searchable digital log of the archives of Congress. The project, which had been discussed for about six years, would essentially catalog Congressional records dating back to 1789 and create a database where researchers could search for specific topics. Though it wouldn't digitize the records themselves, the database would point researchers to places within the expansive records where that topic is discussed. "The idea is to take those various sources ... and to make it a state-of-the-art finding aid," Senate Archivist Karen Paul said. + Final Plan Approved Yesterday + Archivist of the United States David Ferriero, expressed concerned over the cost + Cost Estimate Should Be Provided in Six Months + Size? 500 Million Pages (200,000 Cubic Feet of Records) + Expected To Take Five Years to Complete Read the Full Text Article Continue reading
Survey of (academic) research on Twitter in politics
There has been a lot of research done by academic and consulting institutions regarding Twitter adoption in politics. Between February 2010 to now, I think that there have been at least a dozen circulated studies on this topic. The fact that this topic is studied by consultants, economists, marketers, and political scientists suggests that the topic is important; or at the very least, a trend. A number of interesting results have emerged. Collectively, all of these studies give us a refined picture of a typical politician who Tweets. Williams and Gulati (2010) find that those who adopt Twitter are politicians who have received a lot of contributions. Well funded politicians often have better access and information about "trendy" communication technologies. Alternatively, well funded politicians may have more connections and benefit more from technology that (presumably) maintains these connections. Lassen and Brown (2010) find that politicians in less competitive districts are more likely to adopt Twitter. It is hard to say why this pattern emerges. However, our well publicized paper (Chi and Yang, 2010) may provide a hint. Our study finds that the positive effect on adoption associated with the lack of competitiveness (i.e. electoral support) is largest for inexperienced politicians. This pattern seems to fit with the story which links the benefit associated with transparency and electoral support. Those with strong support have an incentive to maintain their constituents' trust. This incentive is strongest for those who are new to the game and have yet to solidify their positive reputation. Now, this leaves the plethora of studies that seem to be fixated on showing: Republicans are more likely to Tweet (or have higher "Digital IQ"). You can find some of these studies here, here and here. There are probably more studies floating around. But these are the ones that I believe have gained the most traction in the public arena. Continue reading
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