This Tuesday, there will be hearing on budgets for the Library of Congress, the Government Printing Office, the Government Accountability Office, and the Congressional Budget Office. It's too bad that the public won't have a real opportunity to learn about these important agencies, as the meeting is not expected to be webcast by the committee, and (if I remember correctly) the hearing room is so tiny that few if any members of the public will be able to attend.

That's too bad, especially because this is the first opportunity to hear firsthand how last year's budget cuts have affected agencies' abilities to do their jobs, and learn about agency and congressional priorities for the upcoming year. It's also the first time we'll hear from the new acting Public Printer  (the head of GPO); and perhaps the newly appointed head of the Congressional Research Service will be presented and introduced by the Librarian of Congress.

Only the House and Senate Legislative Appropriations Committees regularly hold annual public hearings on the workings of these agencies; the oversight committees (Committee on House Administration and Senate Rules) generally do not, and the Joint Committee on the Library and Joint Committee on Printing no longer holds substantive meetings in public.

The new House rules require that all committees provide "audio and video coverage of each hearing or meeting" that "allows the public to easily listen ... and view the proceedings" "to the maximum extent practicable." All of the House committees have at least one hearing room that is equipped with a camera, and the House Recording Studio will provide a camera upon a committee's request. Unfortunately, this hearing is being held in a room without a camera, and I've been informed that the Committee has not requested one. The Appropriations Committee has not scheduled any other hearings for Tuesday, so the room with the pre-positioned camera should be available.

We ran into this problem last year, when the Committee's justification for holding the meeting in the same  tiny, camera-less room (HT-2) was that it was more convenient to hold the hearing in the Capitol than in one of the legislative buildings. Even if convenience were more important than  the public access rule, the House Recording Studio could still provide a camera, and there are rooms in the newly constructed $600+ million Capitol Visitor Center (i.e. in the Capitol) that already have cameras installed. We would send a video crew ourselves, but only organizations accredited by the House Radio-Television Correspondents' Gallery can ask permission from the Committee to record the event, and the Sunlight Foundation doesn't qualify for membership.

Another change from last year is that members of the public are not invited to speak at the hearing, although they may submit written comments. Along with several others, I took the opportunity to speak last year, where I called for bulk access to THOMAS data and public access to CRS reports. I will submit comments for the record, but written comments are much less effective than speaking directly to the Members of Congress. It's too bad, especially because one of the major lessons of last Thursday's House Legislative Data and Transparency Conference  is that the Library of Congress and GPO have apparently been ignoring their legal obligation to make progress on public access to bulk data. Ironically, it was this very Committee that imposed the obligation upon them in the first place, 3 years ago.

As with everything in Congress, things could still change for Tuesday's hearing -- its time, date, location, and whether it will webcast or covered by the media. I plan on attending, and if I can make it into the room, I'll post an update.

More than three years ago, we launched a website called Capitol Words that gave an at-a-glance view of what word was most popular in Congress. Today, the Sunlight Foundation is unveiling the completely revamped and rewritten Capitol Words.

To folks who never had a chance to play with our previous version, Capitol Words scrapes the bulk data of the Congressional Record from the Government Printing Office, does some computer magic to clean-up and organize the data, then presents an easy-to-use front-end website where you can quickly search the favorite keywords of legislators, states or dates.

The new version now allows users to search, index and graph up to five-word phrases that give greater context and meaning to the turns-of-phrase zinging across the aisle. Where we once could only track individual terms like 'health' or 'energy,' now we can break down the issue further into 'health care reform,' 'renewable energy,' 'high energy prices' or however you wish.

The new advanced comparison chart pits two terms against each other in a contest of partisanship or popularity. The simple chart plots the contest winner and visualizes the debate with an embed code as easy to use as a YouTube video. A prime example is the chart generated for the recent health care reform debate and rise of the term ‘Obamacare’:

Capitol Words now pulls in every word and legislator in the Congressional Record going back more than 15 years to January 1996, when Congress first began a digital record of proceedings. For developers who are excited about this comprehensive database, read the details of the API offerings here.

The additional features we've added developed from the strong foundation of the old Capitol Words that bore ongoing fruit in the form of news stories, material for visualizations or just humorous insights. The Washington Post used Capitol Words to looks up favorite words of notable lawmakers from budget hawks to zombies. Reuters used Capitol Words to look back on the year and find the hottest topics and Gawker even indexed craziness using our word counts. CongressSpeaks.com took the Capitol Words API and made a fun animated site matching up politicians. Back at the Sunlight offices, we eagerly played with the data to make a colorful reflection on the year, a mashup of party leaders and an analysis of the effectiveness of a strategist's memo by looking at the use of suggested terms. Capitol Words digs up the data for new stories about Congress every day and the latest version provides an expanded level of detail and history.

Please lose yourself in the sea of Washington babble and let us know what you find in the deep.

Yesterday, members of the House of Representatives hosted a ground-breaking public discussion on how to give the public better access to congressional information. Around 300 developers, policy wonks, hill staffers, and others crowded into the Capitol Visitor Center to discuss how to use technology to make the legislative branch more open, transparent, and accessible. The event was sponsored by Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer.

Matt Lira, the Director of New Media for Rep. Cantor, opened the conference by hailing it as "our television moment," hearkening back to when House proceedings were first televised so they could be watched by the American people. Steve Dwyer, Rep. Hoyer's Director of Online Community and Technology, expressed his hopes that the day's conversation posed "a new model for collaboration between Congressional staff, advocacy groups, and private companies, where we can come together and meet face-to-face over common goals." We could not agree more. Open government is the common ground shared by leaders in both political parties, and we applaud them for their herculean effort to bring people together to work on these issues.

A lot of important information about the ongoing work of the House was publicly revealed at the conference during the first hour, but equally as important, the remaining three hours had attendees break into smaller groups to tackle persistent problems, resulting in incredibly important conversations between staff, technologists, and advocates that rarely occur, and never before on this scale. Intrepid reporter Alex Howard has already published video and photographs from the presentations, and Rep. Cantor posted a short video.

One of the most edifying presentations was made by Reynold Schweickart, the technology guru for the Committee on House Administration, regarding ongoing House efforts to open itself up. Here are the highlights:

• Next week the Committee on House Administration will likely hold a hearing to consider and adopt legislative data standards.

• Along a similar line, the committee is working on improving/implementing legislative drafting in XML, including how to make the data more accessible internally and to outside users. (We can only hope that this includes discussion of bulk access to this information.)

• There are plans to  start publishing floor and committee documents in a machine readable format at permanent URLs. In addition, there will soon be naming conventions for documents that the House rules require to be made publicly available, with the goal of having permanent URLs by 2013.

• GPO, which has begun publishing historic statutes at large online, will start publishing the historic slip laws as individual files, so that you can easily see (and link to) legislation as it was enacted by Congress. (I have a lot more to say about this here.)

• A meeting was held with representatives from all the offices that are involved in creating and disseminating legislative data. If a true collaboration arises, what this could mean is the creation and use of data standards to describe legislation (and its constituent parts) from when it is drafted, through the amendment process, at passage, and upon codification. This would be revolutionary.

• There are ongoing improvements on how video from committee hearings is recorded and made available to the public, with an emphasis on standardizing and making available meta data. (While not a lot of detail was offered, Carl Malamud, who has long advocated for broadcast quality video from the floor and committee hearings, probably has a lot to add on this issue.)

• There's also ongoing efforts with respect to how constituent communications are received by members of congress, and efforts to make it easier to hire capable vendors.

• Finally, there was a stated willingness to consider to what extent the House Rules need to be amended to allow technological modernization that will make the chamber more transparent.

Later on, Darrell Issa, who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, announced the launch of "Madison" -- a tool whereby the public can comment on legislation as it is being drafted. Here's a rather grainy photo. Rep. Issa explained the concept: "When a member introduces a bill, it should be interoperably commented on, and [those comments] should be part of the markup consideration. Under the Madison initiative, [interest] group's input will be noted and appreciated, and exposed to the world in real time." While similar in concept to PublicMarkup and Open Congress, the difference is that it would be managed and monitored by the office responsible for reviewing the legislation, giving the opportunity to track ideas (and influence) as it occurs. Indeed, after the conference ended, Rep. Issa's staff hosted a hackathon to help improve the tool so it can be unveiled for public use. Stay tuned.

I haven't even begun to speak about the break-out sessions, which I will briefly summarize. Participants broke into four working groups that focused on the following topics: legislative correspondence, legislative workflow and data, public relations and press relations, and casework and constituent services. We reconvened at the end of the conference to discuss our recommendations for improvements. It's too lengthy to go into here. But, on that topic, I would be remiss to not point to an earlier collaborative effort, the Open House Project, which in 2007 raised many of the same issues and outlined a series of recommendations. (And I can't resist plugging this list of ideas for improving THOMAS).

The outstanding question in my mind is: where do we go from here? Much of the conversation can continue on these open policy and technology listservs, at the hashtag #HackWeTrust, and on pages being set up by Facebook* (who sent many developers to participate in the conference). Even so, it would be great to harness this enthusiasm to hold additional events that bring together experts, staff, technologists, and advocates to address the important but complex questions of how to make the legislative branch open, transparent, and technology-friendly. Similarly, it may make sense to institutionalize this discussion as well, perhaps through working group(s), listservs, or other means.

• Updated to include the Facebook page. Also, check out this colloquy between Reps. Cantor and Hoyer that took place today and discussed yesterday's hackathon.

A year ago today, Congress' Joint Committee on Printing directed that three sets of vital legislative and legal documents be published online "as quickly as possible." We've reviewed how well that order was implemented, and the results are not encouraging. Of the three documents, there's only apparent progress on one.

The vital documents are the Constitution Annotated, the Congressional Record, and the Statutes at Large. The Government Printing Office is responsible for publishing them, and shares that responsibility to a certain extent with the Library of Congress and its subsidiary agencies, the Congressional Research Service and the Law Library of Congress. These agencies are custodians of America's heritage, and have an important obligation to make it available to every citizen. Here's how they've performed.

The Constitution Annotated

The Constitution Annotated (or CONAN) is a constantly-updated legal treatise that explains how the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution. It's available to the public online from GPO, but in a cramped, out-of-date, technologically unsophisticated format. Members of the public have been asking for access to a better version for years.

JCP's instructions to GPO are simple and straightforward:

To make the online version of CONAN as useful as possible to Congress and the public, it is time to put the updates online as soon as they are prepared, rather than waiting to coincide with the two-year print cycle. The Joint Committee on Printing is authorizing you to work with the Library of Congress to update the online edition as frequently as possible, and to create new and improved functions on the CONAN site. The Congress and the public should find this site accessible and user-friendly.

What's happened since then? As far as is visible to the public, nothing. The most recent GPO-published  publicly-available complete version of CONAN dates back to 2002, and no updates have been published online since 2010. The webpage is hard to find, and only Congress has access to the latest version on its internal network, as provided by the document's author, the Congressional Research Service. GPO should save itself the trouble and share with the public what's already available on Congress' intranet.

The Congressional Record is the official record of congressional proceedings and debates. GPO has published an online version of the Record dating back to 1994, and the document was first published in its current format in 1873. The Library of Congress has published online earlier recordings of congressional proceedings and debates dating back from the founding of the country until 1873.

The Joint Committee on Printing authorized a collaboration between the GPO and the Library of Congress to digitize volumes of the Congressional Record from 1873 to 1998, which would fill in the missing gaps and provide a complete record of Congressional activity on the internet. JCP directed the online publication of "digital files with search functions, content management capabilities, and digital authentication."

Looking at GPO's website, the collection only dates back to 1994. THOMAS, however, appears to contain records going back to 1989.

There's more than a 100 year gap in the online records of congressional proceedings and debates, a majority of which is within living memory and has repercussions to this day. There's no evidence that any substantive work has been done on this in the last year.

Statutes at Large

The Statutes at Large is the official source for the laws and resolutions passed by Congress. It was first published by a private company in 1845, but responsibility for publication was transferred to GPO in 1874, with administrative responsibility shifting in 1950 and again in 1985. Like the Congressional Record, the Library of Congress has published online historic statutes at large covering the years 1789 to 1873. THOMAS also has long made it possible to browse (but not search) copies of the Statutes at Large from 1973 to present.

The JCP instructed GPO to work with the Law Library of Congress "to create digitized volumes of the Statutes at Large and to develop robust searching and content management tools." In essence, their role is to fill in the gaps. JCP further instructed that "once the content has been prepared, the Statutes at Large will be published online by GPO, and the Library of Congress will use their GPO content in its public database of legislative information known as 'THOMAS.'"

Unlike with the other two publications, there is tangible evidence of progress. GPO has now publishing a digitized version that covers from 1951-2002, which is a significant undertaking. However, the documents have not been integrated into THOMAS, and are still somewhat difficult to use because of their large size. Moreover, GPO published another set of digitized documents, from 2003 to 2007, that are kept in a separate location on GPO's website and stored at a much greater level of granularity.

This project is only partially complete, with a sizable gap in the public record from 1874 to 1951. Moreover, the documents haven't been integrated into THOMAS.

GPO Statement

I asked GPO to comment on their ongoing efforts to comply with the Joint Committee on Printing's letter. Here is their response:

GPO and the Library of Congress have worked together to digitize the U.S. Statutes at Large (content covers volumes 65-116, 1951-2002) and make them available through GPO’s Federal Digital System (www.fdsys.gov).

GPO and the Library of Congress are collaborating on a project to digitize the print bound Congressional Record dating back to 1873. GPO first put the daily Congressional Record online in 1994, and digital versions of the bound Congressional Record from 1998-2002 are currently available on FDsys. GPO is working with CRS on the dynamic version of CONAN.

I would like to call this a work in progress, but there doesn't appear to have been much progress. GPO hasn't provided an explanation for the delay, a timeline for completion, or a plan to get things on track. I know that GPO and its legislative branch colleagues can act with greater speed than we've seen thus far.

I am concerned by the apparent failure to think of how the public will find and use this information. Why aren't all the existing data sets integrated into THOMAS, where people will look for them? Why isn't the data available in bulk, so that developers can build tools to share the information more widely? Why aren't members of the public involved in the design and specifications of these sites, to make sure their needs are addressed?

The JCP described these documents are "essential to understanding our laws and legislative history" and proclaimed that "they should all be readily available online in electronic format." It is long past time to make this happen. The public deserves an explanation of what's gone wrong and when to expect results.

Update: I want to add that none of this should be construed as a commentary on what GPO, LOC, or other agency funding levels should be. Generally speaking, funding cuts would make it less likely that these important initiatives will come to fruition. Instead, I would urge Congress to more closely scrutinize compliance with its directives, and encourage agencies to be more open about their progress and the challenges they face. With respect to funding, it may be that digitization and online publication will lead to significant savings -- especially in terms of the current need to print many copies of these documents as well as the cost to government of paying private vendors to access ostensibly public documents -- but my main point is that the public has a right to this information.

(One more thing -- you may find that some of the links to documents stored on GPO's website, FDsys, don't always work. I don't know why that is, but they often time out for me, too.)

A bill to make federal agency reports to Congress available to the public online has garnered bipartisan support in the House, a companion bill in the Senate, and the thumbs-up from the Government Printing Office and transparency advocates. The Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act would gather together all reports to Congress from federal agencies in one place. It requires that they be published online by GPO in bulk, in open formats, and in a timely fashion, so that people can easily learn about the work of the federal government. As things currently stand, the reports are scattered about online, in the infrequent circumstance when they can be found at all.

Representative Mike Quigley (D-IL) introduced the legislation in the House in May (HR 1974), after which it was promptly considered by the Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, endorsed by Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), and unanimously reported out of committee. The bill currently has 17 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle, including senior Republican leader Greg Walden (R-OR).

Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) introduced companion legislation in the Senate in July (S. 1411) along with Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Tom Coburn (R-OK). Co-sponsorship by the co-chairs of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee bodes well for its future consideration by that committee.

The Government Printing Office, which would be responsible for implementing the legislation, wrote a letter in May indicating its ability and willingness to put the law into effect. Additionally, a coalition of organizations (including Sunlight) wrote to Congress in support of the legislation.

To become law, some hurdles remain. The Committee on House Administration, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, and the Senate Rules Committee would all have to indicate their assent, setting the stage for consideration on the floor by the House and Senate. It's time to enact this bill into law.

As part of an effort to reduce costs, the Government Printing Office is asking congressional offices to cancel print subscriptions to many documents, including the Congressional Record, the Congressional Record Index, the Federal Register, and the Federal Register Index. All of these documents are available online from GPO, but by law are provided in hardcopy to member and committee offices unless they opt-out. GPO is also allowing committees to opt-out of receiving the Code of Federal Regulations.

Moving to an electronic format can result in significant savings, according to a Committee on House Administration hearing held in June. Over time, other print documents could be added.

The increasing use of electronic congressional documents could inspire innovations to allow users to customize how, when, and in what format they receive this information. The end result could be a virtuous cycle of saving GPO printing costs, saving staff time, and increasing public access to legislative information. Of course, Congress has to be careful to preserve copies of its documents for archival purposes.

The changeover to electronic dissemination could be accelerated if the House version of the FY 2012 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill becomes law. It included an amendment that would change the presumption to electronic-only distribution of the Congressional Record unless specifically requested by a particular office.

Later today the House of Representatives will consider the Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill for 2012, which if enacted would provide funds for legislative branch operations for the fiscal year starting on October 1st. Several of the 16 amendments expected to be considered during today's hour-long debate have strong transparency implications, as well as one that is not expected to be considered but is worthy of congressional action.

Make CRS Reports Publicly Available

This amendment, offered by Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), would require the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate to maintain a website containing CRS Reports and Appropriation products, while protecting confidential advice from CRS. The amendment unfortunately will not be considered because of House Rules, but it is noteworthy that it was introduced; the amendment would make many CRS products available to the public through Member and committee websites. These invaluable reports help explain policymaking in easy-to-understand terms, and there's no good reason why they aren't already made available to the public.

We and many other organizations have repeatedly called for easy public access to these reports. There have been public discussions on this topic. Bills have been introduced in Congress again and again. (Rep. Quigley and Sen. Lieberman have been particular leaders on this issue.) It's long past time for Congress to make CRS Reports available to the public.

The House Should Defeat The Attempt to Reduce OCE Funding by 40%

Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) is at it again with an attempt to defund the Office of Congressional Ethics, the House's independent ethics watchdog, perhaps because the office investigated him for questionable activity. In 2010, Watt withdrew an amendment that may have adversely affected corporations that just held a fundraiser for him two days prior to a vote, triggering an investigation. (Watt was ultimately held blameless by the often embattled and deeply conflicted House Ethics Committee -- which is different than the independent OCE.)

Watt's amendment would reduce OCE funding by 40%, which is a $620,000 reduction. Not only do we disagree with the cut, in December we called for OCE's (puny) funding to be doubled this Congress and its powers strengthened. Noted congressional scholar Norm Ornstein just published an editorial in Roll Call that urged OCE be strengthened. Now is not the time to back away from the ethics process. This amendment, which is second in line for consideration, should be defeated.

Revive the Office of Technology Assessment

Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) would revive the Office of Technology Assessment by providing $2.5m for its operations in his amendment. This is a smart move. The OTA was a legislative support agency that provided Congress with objective and authoritative analysis of complex scientific and technical issues. After nearly 25 years of service, it was defunded in 1995 as part of a spasm of cost-cutting, which in OTA's case was overzealous. Technology is at the heart of our economy, and Congress needs smart advice from experts now more than ever. This amendment, which the 12th in line for consideration, should be adopted.

Don't Further Reduce GPO's Budget

Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) has offered an amendment that would further reduce the Government Printing Office's budget by $5m. As the report accompanying the bill notes, the amount appropriated to GPO in the legislation is "$22,067,324, or 16.3% below the fiscal year 2011 level and $35,474,000 below the budget request." Considering GPO's key role in making information available to the public, and how drastically its budget is already being cut, this further reduction appears unwarranted. GAO is already set to look into restructuring GPO, per the Committee Report, so these additional cuts are likely premature. Rep. Stutzman's amendment will be considered eighth, and should be defeated.

Other Amendments

There are a number of other noteworthy amendments, but there's two worth highlighting. First, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) would prohibit Members of Congress from using House funds to purchase web ads that advertise Member or Committee websites. We have not yet formulated an opinion on this amendment, but Rep. Flake deserves commendation for continuing to think about the intersection of ethics, money, and new media. His amendment will be considered 11th.

Second, Rep. Erik Paulson (R-Minn.), along with several others, has introduced two amendments that would require legislation and the Congressional Record be distributed to congressional offices electronically and not in printed form, unless requested by the office. While we do not have a recommendation as to passage or defeat, it is great to see thoughtful consideration of how to move the House further into the electronic age. This may be a cost-savings measure, but it also would further the House's embrace of electronic media and would prompt deliberations on how to improve how electronic information is distributed -- both inside Congress and to the public. The Committee on House Administration recently held a hearing on modernizing information delivery in the House.

Congress will shed significant legislative capacity if the budget bill approved earlier today by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch becomes law. The legislative branch faces a $227 million (or 6.39%) cut from FY 2011, with the brunt borne by GPO (16% cut) and the Library of Congress (8% cut). These two entities have significant responsibilities for making government information available to the public.

It's likely that there will be fewer congressional staff (or they will earn less money) if the $84 million (or 6.46%) cut to the House of Representatives goes through. Added to the FY 2010 budget, money for the House of Representatives has decreased by 10.4% in two years, making it more likely that competent staff will leave Congress for greener pastures with lobbying firms and think tanks.

The bill also includes an unfortunate provision that prevents the Library of Congress from publishing (or preparing for publication) any publication without prior approval. As I testified previously, this provision has been twisted by CRS into a justification for not releasing its reports to the public. A coalition of organizations wrote a letter to appropriators in April that asked them to refrain from including that provision in this year's bill. (More on CRS's future here).

The legislation still need to be approved by the full House Appropriations Committee, the Senate, and signed by the president.

Two of the world's shortest congressional business meetings took place today between 11:37 and 11:41am.

The Joint Committee on the Library, which oversees the Library of Congress, was gavelled into order at 11:37, and in the ensuing two action-packed minutes, Senator Chuck Schumer was unanimously elected as the committee's chair, and Rep. Gregg Harper was elected vice-chair. The Committee then adopted its rules from the 111th Congress for the 112th Congress and adjourned at 11:39.

Immediately thereafter, the Joint Committee on Printing, which oversees the Government Printing Office and public printing generally, came into order at 11:39. At that time, Rep. Gregg Harper was duly elected as committee chair, and Senator Chuck Schumer was elected vice-chair. After adopting the Committee's rules from the 111th Congress as its own, and a short statement from the new chair, the JCP adjourned at 11:41.

Both committees have important tasks to take up during the 112th Congress. They collectively share responsibility (along with the Committee on House Administration and the Senate Rules Committee) for how congressional information is made available to the public. As a starting point, we hope these two committees will update their websites that have fallen into disuse.

We hope that they will work diligently to make public information available online, in real time, and in machine readable formats. Several years ago, we released a report with recommendations on this point, and there's still a lot to do. I testified earlier this year on allowing bulk access to legislative data, and I hope this issue will be addressed in the near future.

The JCL will have particular involvement with the selection of the new director for the Congressional Research Service. As this panel discussion hosted by the Advisory Committee on Transparency identified, there is much to do to bring CRS into the 21st century, including making CRS reports publicly available.

The JCP will likely spend much of its time this year identifying ways to operate more effectively and efficiently. We hope that the effort involves releasing public documents online, in digital formats that can be easily manipulated by computers. And, of course, we're hoping for action on the Constitution Annotated as well.