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Call for Action: Sign Read the Bill!
Our busy friends at the Sunlight Foundation have started a petition drive to demand that Congress post non-emergency bills for 72 hours prior to voting. This would allow both the public and Members of Congress time to read a bill before a vote. Whether you're a liberal outraged at the USA Patriot Act or a tax-cutting conservative outraged at the stimulus bill, you should be for getting Congress to STOP and READ what they're doing to the nation. If you agree, drop what you're doing and visit www.readthebill.org and add your voice to the movement that asks nothing more than that important legislation gets read. And if you're not convinced that rushed legislation is a bad thing, go read the case studies of bad bills. Then sign the petition. Continue reading
CRS Reports to the People! Part II
My earlier post, CRS Reports to the People!, dealt with which congressmen to contact and which congressmen sponsored what bills in the past, etc. But now I would like to offer some sample letters that you can emulate and send. I sent all of mine just after the inauguration of President Obama and will let you know what kinds of responses I get. Here is a sample letter to send to those who have sponsored similar bills about publicly releasing all CRS Reports in the past (be sure to refer to my previous post that lists all these bills and their sponsors in your letter!):
The Honorable [full name] [Room #] [Name] Senate [or] House Office Building United States House of Representatives [or] United States Senate Washington, DC 20515 Dear Senator: or Dear Representative: Due to your [introduction/co-sponsorship] of BILL [X], I am writing to seek your support yet again in addressing the need for making Congressional Research Service Reports available to the public in a way that they can be easily obtained. American taxpayers spend nearly $100 million a year to fund the Congressional Research Service, yet it remains cumbersome to acquire these informative reports. Several libraries and non-profit organizations have sought to collect as many of the released reports as possible. Unfortunately, there is no feasible way to obtain all CRS reports, therefore, I believe that it would be best if Congress made all CRS Reports available to the public online. President Obama has demonstrated and fosters the spirit of open access and transparency during his administration, as a Government Documents Librarian and contributor for the Free Government Information website [list your credentials, affiliations, etc. or simply say "as a tax paying citizen], I strongly believe that there is no greater time than now to address the need for the availability of these educational and beneficial reports to the public. Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your reply. Sincerely, [Your Name] [Your official title/degree credentials] [Contact Address and Email]If the Congressmen you are writing to have not sponsored a bill related to the public release of all CRS Reports, then use this nearly identical form letter:
The Honorable [full name] [Room #] [Name] Senate [or] House Office Building United States House of Representatives [or] United States Senate Washington, DC 20515 Dear Senator: or Dear Representative: I am writing to seek your support in addressing the need for making Congressional Research Service Reports available to the public in a way that they can be easily obtained. Previous bills addressing this topic have been introduced by Congressmen, but were unsuccessful. Most recently, these included H.R. 2545 (2007) and S. Res. 401 (2007). American taxpayers spend nearly $100 million a year to fund the Congressional Research Service, yet it remains cumbersome to acquire these informative reports. Several libraries and non-profit organizations have sought to collect as many of the released reports as possible. Unfortunately, there is no feasible way to obtain all CRS reports, therefore, I believe that it would be best if Congress made all CRS Reports available to the public. President Obama has demonstrated and fosters the spirit of open access and transparency during his administration, as a Government Documents Librarian and contributor for the Free Government Information website [list your credentials, affiliations, etc. or simply say "as a tax paying citizen], I strongly believe that there is no greater time than now to address the need for the availability of these educational and beneficial reports to the public. Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your reply. Sincerely, [Your Name] [Your official title/degree credentials] [Contact Address and Email]Continue reading
Congressional Transparency, Past and Present
There are a few transparency bills that are up for debate in Congress today: The Presidential Records Act and The Presidential Library Donation Reform Act. The Sunlight Blog has a good write-up summarizing the importance of these two bills, as well as a post by Ellen Miller. I just checked GovTrack.org and here are the House votes results: On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass: H R 35 Presidential Records Act Amendments On Motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass: H R 36 Presidential Library Donation Reform Act If you are interested in learning more about the history of Congressional transparency reform, checkout Sunlight.org's project, The Transparency Timeline. Continue reading
towatch: powers of Congress
Here's an It's-a-wonderful-life-esque look at the US Congress for your friday afternoon viewing pleasure. This video can be found at the Internet Archive's Prelinger Archives. I happened upon this film when it jumped out at me from the credits of John Hodgman's Spamasterpiece Theater Vol II: "Wuthering Wire Transfers." that is all.
CRS Reports to the People!
Now that a new administration will be coming into office soon, it is more important than ever to encourage our Government to make Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports publicly accessible online. Here at FGI, the topic of CRS Reports has been written about often, but I was inspired to create this blog post and take action after seeing Starr Hoffman’s DLC conference presentation last week (click on "Search Document" and enter "Starr Hoffman". Her PowerPoint, "Encouraging An Informed Citizenry" will come up as a PDF to download). Starr is responsible for maintaining University of North Texas's Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports Archive. In her presentation, she gives tips for writing to Congressmen and lists some past legislative efforts (Bills that never passed both houses of Congress) to make CRS Reports publicly accessible. I have gathered some other Bills, as well as all the contact information for the sponsoring Congressmen and have included them in my Delicious.com "CRS" tag as well as in this list: 1998 H.R. 3131, S. 1578 1999 H.R. 654, S. 393 2000 H.R. 4582 2001 S. Res. 21 2003 H.R. 3630, S. Res. 54 2007 H.R. 2545, S. Res. 401 Senator John McCain Introduced S. 1578, S. 393, S.Res. 21, S. Res. 54, & co-sponsored S. Res. 401 Senator Mike Enzi Co-sponsored S. 393 Senator Leahy Co-sponsored S. 393, S. Res. 21, S. Res. 54, and S. Res. 401. Senator Tom Coburn H.R. 4582 co-sponsor when he was in the House. Senator Jim DeMint Introduced H.R. 4582 when he was in the House. Senator Joe Lieberman Introduced S. Res. 401 and co-sponsored S. Res. 21 and S. Res. 54 Senator Tom Harkin Co-sponsored S. Res. 54 and S. Res. 401 Senator Susan M. Collins Co-sponsored S. Res. 401 Senator John Cornyn Co-sponsored S. Res. 401 Congressman David Price Co-sponsor for H.R. 3131, H.R. 654, H.R. 3630, and H.R. 2545 Congressman John Campbell Co-sponsored H.R. 654 Congressman Jay Inslee Co-sponsored H.R. 3630 and H.R. 2545 And you can find and contact your local Senator and your Representatives too. James A. Jacobs did a Google search this past June for "Received through the CRS Web" OR "CRS Report for Congress" combined with site:house.gov and then again for site:senate.gov and got around 600 hits with each. For example, here are some domains he found that you can search within for CRS Reports or to search for those in Congress who may support public access to CRS Reports: bartlett.house.gov, holt.house.gov, radanovich.house.gov, weldon.house.gov, bennelson.senate.gov, carper.senate.gov, lugar.senate.gov, murray.senate.gov, etc. For more information on CRS Report legislation efforts, visit this site which contains a "Campaign for Online Access" section. Spread the word about this post and good luck in writing to your Congressmen! If you have other ideas, please share them in the comments. Continue reading
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