Talk:Congressional Committees Project: Best Practices
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Suggestions for Sections
Awesome. You already got it here. Some section suggestions:
- document standards (XML, RDF, PDF) and the need for a standardized schema (if we go with XML, I gather).
- a link to the Sunlight foundation page reviewing committee pages, and then a discussion perhaps of what we can glean from the stronger pages (like the gov't reform committee website).
- Timely transcript availability.
- Individual pages would probably have to publish to the burgeoning RSS feed, right? (The RSS feed was suggested by a staffer as a way to notify of new info available on committee sites.--Greenreflex 12:42, 10 December 2006 (PST)
- We might also want to group suggestions by who would be able to implement them -- i.e., which ones could be put in place by a single committee staffer; which would require the cooperation of committee members; which would need additional legislation or expenditures, etc. —Abou Ben Adhem 16:17, 12 December 2006 (PST)
Things things aren't related to committees
Things things are nice things in general to change about Congress, but they're not related to committees directly and are quite lofty goals! Those types of things really belong on this other wiki instead. --Tauberer 05:33, 11 December 2006 (PST)
Bill text
The full text of the bills and amendments should be available online in human-readable (HTML) and computer-readable (XML?) format as far in advance is possible. The rules about the bill passage passed down by the House Rules committee should also be published prior to discussion.
For budget bills, there should be an easy way (a spreadsheet?) to view the expenses.
The bill items and amendments that modify the text of previous bills or rules should provide an easy way to view the original and the modified text in context.
Non-Congressional documents
All documents that members of congress request from government agencies (can they request non-government organizations?) in relation to bills should be made public on their delivery unless the requestor specifies that they should remain private. For example, reports from Congressional Research Service, analyses from Energy Information Administration etc.
- I would argue that this is related to watching the committees, because the transcripts of hearings may refer to them. So a request of having them available is an extension of the request of transcript availability. --Simonf 23:38, 11 December 2006 (PST)
- Well, sure, but what's the scope of these recommendations? Casting a huge net over every MoC's request for a document is way beyond the issues surrounding committee websites, for instance. --Tauberer 05:11, 19 December 2006 (PST)
Lobbying disclosure
See this blog post that talks about Foreign Agents Registration Act and the publicly, but not electronically, accessible documents about Congress lobbying by foreign nationals.
Minor note on PDF and open standards
Adobe is officially turning over control of the PDF format to an international standards organization, partly in response to governments demanding open document standards. They're apparently also in the process of re-implementing PDF as an XML format.
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