Cato Institute: Legislative Transparency and Data Model

An email to the Sunlight Foundation's OpenGov listserve from Jim Harper of the Cato Institute points to his blog post, chock full of links and information, about the upcoming House conference on legislative transparency.  Among the references are a number of quite detailed and on-target recommendations that Cato is making... [Read More]

Make Change Consistent: Legislative Recommendation #2

In preparation for the U.S. House conference on data and transparency, I'm making four basic recommendations that, together, would create a framework for a more efficient electronic representation of U.S. Federal statutes.The attention from the House on data transparency, combined with current partisan gridlock on issues of policy, make this a perfect... [Read More]

Write in Plain English: Legislative Recommendation #1

I earlier listed recommendations for the U.S. House's Feb. 2 conference on legislative transparency and accessibility.  These recommendations, to improve the human and machine accessibility of Federal legislation first require changes in the way that legislation is written, and second focus on the technology to support those changes.  Some of these changes... [Read More]

Legislative Standards: U.S. House Conference

The U.S. House will hold a conference about transparency and legislative data on February 2, 2012 (with remote streaming?).  As Daniel Schuman of the Sunlight Foundation writes, "This is a big deal."  In this time of extreme partisanship and one-upmanship in politics, legislative data transparency is both important and that... [Read More]