Transparency in Government Act 2008

TITLE II - Enhancing Public Access to the Work of Congressional Committees, Legislative Information, and Votes

Summary:

Requires committee schedules and recorded votes and other committee information, such as testimony and witness statements, to be posted online.

Requires that non-emergency legislation and conference reports are available on the Internet for 72 hours before consideration.

Requires clear identification of new material in conference reports. Requires open, public meetings of conference committees.

Requires electronic access to all public votes taken in the House or Senate.

Requires the Library of Congress to create an Application Programming Interface (API) to provide public access to legislative information.

Appropriates funds to the National Archives to digitally preserve congressional Web sites.

Appropriates funds to expand the Library of Congress's Web services operations.


Additional Information:

See also the committee chapter of the Open House Project report.

The Rules of the House are available from the House Rules Committee, or from Congresspedia, and the Rules of the Senate are available from the Senate Rules Committee, or from Congresspedia.

  1. Sec. 201. Posting of committee recorded votes online in a timely manner. (4 Comments)

    1. The Rules of the Senate and the House of Representatives shall be amended to require all committees post recorded votes on their Web sites within 48 hours of such votes.

    Rationale:

    By posting committee votes online within 48 hours, the public will have timely access to some of the most important votes taken by its Members of Congress.

    Recent comments on Sec. 201

    (View all 4 comments | Add a comment)
    1. The Cunctator, Hill Heat:

      Following up on Nancy and Dan's comments: Amend Sec. 201 to read: "The Rules of the Senate and the House of Representatives shall be amended to require all committees post recorded votes in both human-readable and structured data format on their Web sites on the day of such votes."

      March 31, 2008

    2. Dan Newman, MAPLight.org:

      6-12 hours is reasonable given the critical importance of this information. Once a standardized system is set up to record and publish votes, this time frame can be met. The THOMAS Web site routinely posts votes within hours after their completion.

      March 27, 2008

    3. Nancy Watzman Sunlight Foundation:

      Would it be possible to make a requirement about the required format of these votes so they would easily be downloadable into a spreadsheet/database?

      March 27, 2008

  2. Sec. 202. Posting congressional committee schedules online in a timely manner. (2 Comments)

    1. House and Senate Rules are amended to add the following new paragraph:

      Congressional committees and subcommittees are required to post a schedule of all public hearings and markups on the their Web sites as soon as the schedules are made publicly available. The information to be reported includes, but is not limited to, the topic of the hearing or markup, including a reference to specific legislation when applicable, as well as witness names as soon as available.

    Rationale:

    Timely posting of hearing and markup information will provide the public with a complete picture of the early stages of the legislative process. The information will be easy for the public to find, and will be more reliable than if it is culled from numerous secondary sources.

    Recent comments on Sec. 202

    (View all 2 comments | Add a comment)
    1. The Cunctator, Hill Heat:

      No need to require clerks to aggregate as long as all committees use a common XML format to list hearings/markups.

      March 31, 2008

    2. ds:

      Let me suggest that the respective clerks of each house be responsible for compiling and publishing an aggregated list of (all of the) committee's schedules, to be updated each business day.

      March 28, 2008

  3. Sec. 203. Posting of other committee information. (7 Comments)

    1. Each standing and special committee of the Senate and House and each joint committee of the Congress, shall provide access via the Internet to publicly-available committee information, documents, and proceedings, including bills, reports, and official transcripts of committee meetings that are open to the public.

    2. The Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate shall provide in a structured data format a complete list of all public committee proceedings.

    Rationale:

    Members rely on myriad information when they deliberate over legislative proposals. Transcripts, reports prepared by federal agencies, and other such resources should be available on committee Web sites.

    Recent comments on Sec. 203

    (View all 7 comments | Add a comment)
    1. Lisa Rosenberg, The Sunlight Foundation:

      I think there are some very helpful suggestions in here, some of which could be incorporated into legislative language, including providing information on committee and subcommittee membership, and making text, audio and video available. I would love your input as to where else the bill should include "structured data format."

      April 2, 2008

    2. The Cunctator, Hill Heat:

      There should be no reason that only lobbyists can get rush transcripts of hearings. Unofficial transcripts of hearings (such as the ones Congressional Quarterly provides) should be made available as soon as they are available. That "structured data format" requirement needs to be other places.

      March 31, 2008

    3. TValley:

      Are you talking about making documents available for download? Should you include guidelines for format - pdf, word doc, html, etc? Also, do you need to anticipate Windows, Linux, Mac OS and future innovations in the bill?

      March 31, 2008

  4. Sec. 204. Full disclosure of non-emergency legislation and amendments online 72 hours before a vote. (6 Comments)

    1. The rules of the House of Representatives and the Standing Rules of the Senate are amended by inserting the following:

      `(1) It shall not be in order to consider in the House or the Senate a measure or matter, including bills and amendments, until 72 hours (excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays except when the relevant chamber is in session on such a day) after the text of such measure or matter (and, if the measure or matter is reported, the text of all accompanying reports) have been made available to Members, Delegates, the Resident Commissioner, Senators, and the general public pursuant to subparagraph (3);

      1. For purposes of this paragraph, a measure or matter is made available to the general public as of the time it is posted by the Secretary of the Senate or Clerk of the House on their respective Web sites in a format that can be searched by text.

        `(3) This rule may be waived by a vote of two-thirds of the Members voting, a quorum being present.'.

    Recent comments on Sec. 204

    (View all 6 comments | Add a comment)
    1. SteveHouse:

      This will create an effective filibuster of, eh, any bill someone REALLY doesn't like. They just have to add a new amendment every couple of days, meaning the vote gets delayed another three days. This should be more along the lines of "The House or Senate shall not vote on any bill unless it has been publicly available for 72 ...

      April 16, 2008

    2. John Wirts:

      There Should be no exception even with 2/3 majority and a quroum present! Also I would like to see a ban on any amendment which does not dierctly modify the bill being amended. If the amendment does not affect the bill, it should not be allowed as an amendment! It should be required to be introduced as a new bill!!

      April 4, 2008

    3. anonymous:

      72 hours notice? Post a bill 72 hours in advance. I need time to work on amendments so you need another 72 hours for the posting of amendments. Wait, there's more. How about amendments to amendments? Second degree amendments are in order so now you need yet another 72 hours. If the proposal is designed so that no legislation can ...

      April 4, 2008

  5. Sec. 205. Full disclosure of conference reports, identification of new material in conference reports and openness in conference committee deliberations. (1 Comment)

    1. IN GENERAL- The rules of the House and the Standing Rules of the Senate are amended by adding at the end the following:

      1. It shall not be in order to vote on the adoption of a report of a committee of conference unless such report has been available to Members and to the general public for at least 72 hours before such vote. If a point of order is sustained under this paragraph, then the conference report shall be set aside.

        `(2) For purposes of this paragraph, a report of a committee of conference is made available to the general public as of the time it is posted by the Secretary of the Senate or Clerk of the House on their respective Web sites in a format that can be searched by text.

      2. This rule may be waived by a vote of two-thirds of the Members voting, a quorum being present.

    2. Clear Identification of New Material in Conference Reports- The Rules of the House and the Standing Rules of the Senate are amended by adding at the end the following:

      `The joint explanatory statement by a committee of conference shall separately identify and explain each provision of the report in violation of paragraph 2 or 3 of rule XXVIII of the Standing Rules of the Senate and, if possible, identify the Member who proposed such provision.'.

    3. Conference Committee Protocols-

      1. Conference Committees shall hold regular, formal meetings of all conferees that are open to the public or televised;

      2. All conferees should be given adequate notice of the time and place of all such meetings; and

      3. All conferees should be afforded an opportunity to participate in full and complete debates of the matters that such conference committees may recommend to their respective Houses.

    Rationale:

    The important work of conference committees should be open to public scrutiny. When circumstances arise in which it is necessary to include in a conference report a provision or measure never before debated and voted, that provision should be highlighted so as to avoid the appearance or actuality of unfair dealing.

    Recent comment on Sec. 205

    (View 1 comment | Add a comment)
    1. anonymous:

      You can require that conference committees meet in public and on tv as much as you want. All the real deals will be cut in the backroom no matter what how you write a rule. And an awful lot of differences between house and senate bills get resolved without a conference committee so the proposal won't even apply to those ...

      April 4, 2008

  6. Sec. 206. Electronic access to votes. (3 Comments)

    1. The Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate shall post on the public Internet site of the Office of the Clerk or Secretary, respectively, a record, organized by Member or Senator name, in a structured data format, of the recorded votes of each Member or Senator, including the roll, date, issue, question, result, and title or description of the vote, and any cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office related to the vote; and

    2. Each Member or Senator who maintains an official public Internet site shall provide a clearly presented electronic link to the Member's individual recorded vote information described in paragraph (1).

    Rationale:

    Providing Congressional vote information in a structured format will allow third parties to reuse and republish the data more reliably, and enable Congressional staff to make better decisions that depend on legislative information.

    Recent comments on Sec. 206

    (View all 3 comments | Add a comment)
    1. Emily:

      I agree that the votes would be properly located on Thomas

      May 14, 2008

    2. Matthew Castanien:

      word change: In section (b): FROM "...vote information described in paragraph (1)." TO: "...vote information described in paragraph (a)."

      April 2, 2008

    3. Joshua Tauberer, GovTrack.us:

      The House publishes roll call votes in XML. The Senate should do the same. CBO cost estimates are not relevant here. This is one of a million of factoids related to a bill that might be of interest. The sites should (and no doubt would) link to THOMAS. The link to CBO should be on THOMAS. There are a lot ...

      March 27, 2008

  7. Sec. 207. Creation of a legislative database. (9 Comments)

    1. The Library of Congress shall offer an Application Programming Interface (API) to provide public access to legislative documents, bill status, and summary information.

    Rationale:

    Creating an API for legislative information from THOMAS would allow technologists reliable access to legislative data at its source.

    Recent comments on Sec. 207

    (View all 9 comments | Add a comment)
    1. SpaceLifeForm:

      We need a section 209 - All legislation should be viewed, and discussed ,with clear changes on a Wiki. All Elected Representatives should have to publicly acknowledge on the Wiki that he/she has read the proposed legislation before they can vote on it. There should be no excuses as to why a rep would vote on something they have not ...

      April 17, 2008

    2. matt burton:

      I see Joshua's point regarding APIs. A government-built API won't be sufficient. It will take a long time for them to produce it. It will cost them lots of money. And it will fall short of our expectations. And as Joshua mentioned in the GAO section, standards change, meaning the government would have to go through this process every few ...

      April 4, 2008

    3. Joshua Tauberer, GovTrack.us:

      Replying to Matthew's comments: "On a side note, I hope that the Library of Congress hires a DBA (Database Administrator) to properly design the database schema and normalize it. " The LOC has had a database in place for as long as there has been THOMAS, and they were in the process of converting the database to an XML database...

      April 3, 2008

  8. Sec. 208. Appropriation of sums to preserve congressional information. (1 Comment)

    1. Such sums that are necessary shall be appropriated to the National Archives to create and archive a digital copy of congressional Web sites, including Member and committee Web sites, on a yearly basis.

    2. Such sums as are necessary shall be appropriated to fully support and expand the Library of Congress's Web services operations, including THOMAS, the World Digital Library, the Legislative Information Services database, the Office of Strategic Initiatives, and the Law Library.

    Rationale:

    Congressional documents are historic in nature, and increasingly produced entirely in a digital form. Congress's increasing reliance on digital publication creates new challenges for archivists managing digital preservation. Providing annual sums for the Web harvest program would ensure preservation of Congress's online presence to be preserved.

    Recent comment on Sec. 208

    (View 1 comment | Add a comment)
    1. James Jacobs (free government information):

      Section title edit "...sums to preserve congressional and executive agency information." I'd also add the Govt Printing Office (GPO) to that list in need of necessary appropriations.

      March 31, 2008

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