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Tag Archives: legislative information
Comparing LIS and Thomas
The Congressional Research Service has published an update to its handy guide for finding current legislation and regulations:
- Researching Current Federal Legislation and Regulations: A Guide to Resources for Congressional Staff. by Jerry W. Mansfield, Congressional Research Service, RL33895 (August 31, 2012). Available from Federation of American Scientists.
| LIS | THOMAS |
| Best used for Finding the most complete legislative information | Best used for Working with constituents |
| Links from Bill Summary & Status display to CRS reports | No CRS reports |
| Links to Capitol Hill and selected outside sources of floor and committee schedule information. | Minimal links |
| Special advanced search capabilities | Advanced search capabilities only in Bill Summary & Status database |
Josh Tauberer Gets Congress Into the 21st Century
This article reports on the importance of a bill that will enable Congress to provide bulk access to its legislative data. It also profiles one of the heroes of open-access to Congressional data, Josh Tauberer. As the Post says, Josh has prodded Congress and the result may be the "raw material for an Angie's List or a Yelp for Congress, a way for modern users to evaluate lawmakers with the same kind of crowdsourced help that they use to evaluate lunch." This is a lot like how Carl Malamud got the SEC to put the EDGAR database online. (SEC'S EDGAR On Net, What Happened And Why, TAP-INFO, 30 Nov 1993). Congressional data may soon be easier to use online, by David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post, (June 8, 2012)..
Online, searching for a bill in Congress feels a little like time travel: Go looking for legislation, and you wind up in the Internet of 1995. At Congress's '90s-vintage archive site, there's no way to compare bills side by side. No tool to measure the success rate of a bill's sponsor. And there's certainly no way to leave a comment. Congress makes it hard for outside sites to do any of this, either, by refusing to give out bulk data on its bills in a user-friendly form. On Friday, that might start to change.Continue reading
update on bulk access to legislative information
Rep. Crenshaw backs down, loses control over bulk data issue, by Josh Tauberer, GovTrack.us (June 7, 2012).
The government data that makes GovTrack go has been the center of what looks like a failed political power play over the last week. Rep. Crenshaw, whose appropriations subcommittee issued a draft report last week that nearly halted access to "bulk data downloads," now "agree[s] to free legislative information" according to a statement written jointly with House leaders yesterday.Continue reading
#FreeTHOMAS
Time to contact your representatives!
- #FreeTHOMAS, by Daniel Schuman, Sunlight Foundation (June 4, 2012) The better approach is for Congress to publish the data behind THOMAS. Government regularly does this elsewhere, and "bulk data" is responsible for clever new uses of information developed by citizens, journalists, and even the government itself. In upcoming days, the House is likely to pass legislative language that pays lip service to releasing THOMAS data while putting the idea in a deep freeze. This would be a disaster. But it's not too late. Tell your representative that you want Congress to publish legislative data now. Continue reading
Congress stall bulk access to legislative information
Daniel Schuman of Sunlight Foundation and Josh Tauberer of GovTrack.us give easy to understand explanations of the importance of a bill before Congress (H.R. 5882) that deals with open access to bulk Congressional data. The committee report on the bill gives an embarrassing justification for denying bulk access to legislation:
...the Committee is also concerned that Congress maintains the ability to ensure that its legislative data files remain intact and a trusted source once they are removed from the Government's domain to private sites.This is either disingenuous or badly informed.
- Bulk Access Developments after the H. Approps Hearing, by Daniel Schuman, Sunlight Foundation (June 1, 2012). Instead of striking a balance between the desire for openness with legitimate concerns about process, they fell victim to fears and misunderstanding about technology that resulted in a ham-fisted process that will likely freeze any forward momentum, or maybe even turn back the clock.
- Rep. Crenshaw thinks American public can’t be trusted with overseeing Congress, by Josh Tauberer, GovTrack.us Blog (June 4, 2012). ...for the last eight years I've been making this sort of information available on GovTrack, and last I checked that was a good thing. Even Congress's staff uses GovTrack: Crenshaw’s own staff has probably used GovTrack for their research.
- Hill may freeze THOMAS in digital past, by Jennifer Peebles, Washington Examiner (May 31, 2012). A web interface that lets us call up and download one bill at a time was really innovative once -- say, 15 years ago. But that won't cut it anymore. Folks with computers -- notably, professional and citizen journalists -- would be able to take information about massive numbers of bills and analyze them in myriad ways -- if Congress would allow such information to be downloaded from THOMAS in bulk. It won't. And, according to a new draft report from the House Appropriations Committee, it won't be allowing bulk data downloads from THOMAS anytime soon.
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