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.

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

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.

Conclusion

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.)

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., recently got into a bit of trouble when he falsely stated on the floor of the Senate that, "If you want an abortion you go to Planned Parenthood and that's well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does." Only about 3% of business at Planned Parenthood is actually abortion services. A spokesman for Kyl later corrected Kyl's statement by stating, "...his remark was not intended to be a factual statement."

Kyl was pilloried for days on Twitter and television after Stephen Colbert began a Twitter hashtag #notintendedtobeafactualstatement matched with outrageous false statements about Kyl.

As it happens, Kyl didn't just intend for the 90% number to not be a "factual statement," he also doesn't intend for it to be a statement at all. Kyl has revised his remarks from the Senate floor in the official Congressional Record and removed the 90% line altogether.

This episode exposes an oft-overlooked peculiarity of Congress' "official" Congressional Record: members of Congress can revise and insert remarks into the Record, altering the historical record.

The Sunlight Foundation's Open House Project included an entire chapter devoted to changing the rules that allow Congress to change their statements after the fact. The Open House Project report stated, "The Congressional Record serves to inform people of the actual spoken comments by their elected officials. Citizens should be able to determine if their elected representatives, after seeing the votes of their colleagues, went back to the Congressional Record and edited what they said about a proposed legislation. The public should also be able to determine whether or not their elected members participated in a given debate."

A 2007 report from Reason Magazine detailed many instances of absurd abuses of the Congressional Record revision authority given to lawmakers. Aside from the insertion of speeches made by a dead congressman, perhaps the most famous incident of Congressional Record revision was an imagined colloquy between Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Kyl:

...look at Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the military commissions established to try the Guantanamo detainees violate the Geneva Conventions. During the runup to the decision, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) filed a brief arguing that the court shouldn't be able to judge the plaintiff's complaints, since the "text, history, and purpose of the Detainee Treatment Act confirm that Congress intended to withdraw federal-court jurisdiction to review the detention-related claims of Guantanamo detainees." This intent, they argued, was "confirmed" by the legislative history of the act, which featured an "extensive colloquy" between Sens. Graham and Kyl on the subject.

Alas, the colloquy was ... fictional ... It was inserted into the Record after the fact but was written to give the impression that it wasn't, complete with lines like "I have just been handed a memorandum on this subject" and even an imaginary interruption by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.).

In the age of YouTube, Twitter, and second-by-second news updates, the ability to revise one's remarks in the Congressional Record appears to be a vanity exercise. The removals of "ums" and stutters may be acceptable, but lawmakers should not be able to falsify the record by removing their controversial and inaccurate statements. Congressmen and the public should look to the Open House Report recommendations for further guidance.

For now, we'll just use the new official record of Congress:

I’m rather late in sharing the news, but “enhanced access” to three of “our nation’s vital legislative and legal documents” will soon be possible thanks to a letter from the Joint Committee on Printing to the Government Printing Office and the Library of Congress. Specifically, it authorizes the two legislative agencies to work together to provide “enhanced access” to the Constitution Annotated, the Congressional Record, and the Statutes at Large.

The Constitution Annotated

We’ve been banging on the drum for improved access to the Constitution Annotated for a year-and-a-half, and I’m pleased to announce a partial victory. To recap, the Constitution Annotated is a government publication that explains the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court. Although updated on a frequent basis and readily available to congressional staff, the complete Constitution Annotated is released to the public only once a decade -- scrubbed of helpful metadata. Updates reflecting recent Court decisions are released separately every two years, far short of what’s available to Congress.

The Joint Committee on Printing has directed that updates to CONAN (as it’s affectionately know) be put online as soon as they are prepared. But, instead of publishing it in XML, the structured data format in which it is prepared, CONAN will be published as a PDF. My former colleague Clay Johnson explained two years ago why publishing files only as PDFs is bad for open government. We appreciate that the document will be searachable and have a hyperlinked table of contents, but we’d like the underlying data, too. More than 20 organizations last year asked for CONAN to be made publicly available online in structured data format as it is updated in real time, as did then-Senator Feingold, and we hope that we’ll ultimately get there.

Congressional Record

It is a surprising fact that the official record of the proceedings and debate of the U.S. Congress are only available online (for free) from 1999 forward and prior to 1873. The JCP has now given GPO the go-ahead to digitize volumes of the Congressional Record during that 125 year gap. I fear that it will be made available only as a PDF, which will require a tremendous and expensive effort to transform those files into a structured data format that everyone can use. Still, making the documents available in some way is better than none. The American people have a right to see the crucial debates in Congress that continue to shape our world.

Statutes at Large

Believe it or not, it’s impossible to find all the laws enacted by congress online. Although the U.S. Code is available in its entirety, it is not always “positive law”; to find the original bills as they were enacted and are often still in effect, you have to look to the Statutes at Large. In essence, the Statutes at Large are a chronological compilation of bills enacted into law. (The process by which the bills are broken apart and transformed into the U.S. Code is discussed here.)

The JCP has now authorized GPO to work with the Law Library of Congress to digitize and publish online absent volumes of the Statutes at Large and “develop robust searching and content management tools.” Hopefully this means more than scanning them and putting them online as PDFs, but even that would be a great step forward. We’ve been interested in this for quite a while, and we’re glad to see that things are moving forward.

The Road Ahead

The JCP letter was sent nearly 3 months ago -- on November 17 -- and I am unable to find any evidence that the Constitution Annotated has been updated online or that progress has been made on the Congressional Record or the Statutes at Large. That is not to say that nothing has been done, but I was hoping to see, well, something. Although JCP has directed these agencies to complete these projects “as quickly as possible,” the absence of deadlines and historical reluctance on the part of some of the institutional players raises concerns about forward movement, particularly with respect to the Constitution Annotated.

We have other ideas about how Congress can improve public access to lawmaking information. Some of them are described in my “Read the Bill 2.0” post. The truth is that we are only beginning to scratch the surface of what should be available. I applaud the JCP’s efforts to move things forward, and I hope that the pace will only quicken.

Constitution Annotated, Congressional Record, and Statutes at Large

More than a dozen lawmakers inserted statements supporting a biotechnology provision added to the House health care bill that was crafted by lobbyists for the biotechnology firm Genentech. According to the New York Times, "lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress."

The Genentech lobbyists crafted two statements -- one for Democrats and one for Republicans -- for lawmakers to insert into the Congressional Record. The collection of lawmakers is very bipartisan with ten Republicans and eight Democrats issuing near identical statements. (One Democrat, Rep. Heath Shuler, inserted the Republican statement.)

For the unstudied examiner these insertions look like amateur work; more a liability than a success for this multi-million dollar lobbying campaign. That may turn out to be true with the Times' story, but the statements made by these eighteen lawmakers can serve a powerful purpose for the biotechnology industry and Genentech in particular.

The words spoken or inserted into the official Congressional Record carry an import that those spoken in a television interview or campaign speech do not. These are official words placed in an archived government document, preserved for posterity. The use of the lobbyist written script by these eighteen lawmakers amounts to full-throated endorsement, not just of the biotechnology provision, but of the interpretation of what that provision means to one particular company, Genentech and their parent company Roche, Inc.

These statements will aid the industry when they lobby the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the implementation of the law and the attendent rules that relate to the biotechnology industry. They also help by putting these lawmakers on the line in official support of Genentech's view of the provision. In turn, these lawmakers will likely see a hefty rise in campaign contributions from Genentech and their friends. Perhaps Genentech or another biotechnology firm will decide to fund a research project in their district. Even better, the lawmaker could earmark a research grant that could only be filled by Genentech.

Insertions into the Congressional Record have caused controversy in the past. In 2000, Rep. Bob Ney placed two statements into the Congressional Record regarding the sale of SunCruz Casinos. It was a bit odd for an Ohio congressman to be getting involved in the middle of a casino boat sale in Florida. Ney placed one statement into the record bad-mouthing SunCruz owner Gus Boulis and another singing the praises of the potential buyer Adam Kidan. It turned out that Ney was on the take from Kidan and his partner Jack Abramoff and wound up pleading guilty to multiple charges in 2006.

In 2006, Sens. Lindsay Graham and Jon Kyl filed a brief in the Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld arguing that the Detainee Treatment Act, recently passed by Congress, removed Hamdan's case from federal court jurisdiction. In the brief, Graham and Kyl cite themselves having a colliquoy in the Congressional Record during debate on the Detainee Treatment Act. Graham and Kyl were trying to show that the "legislative history," the interpretation of legislation by lawmakers voting on it, meant to remove Hamdan's case from the federal docket. Only problem, the colliquoy never happened. It was inserted at the last minute by the two senators. It's hard to prove that something is legislative history when only two senators were aware of the stated congressional interpretation. The court asserted jurisdiction over the case in a 5-3 vote and sided with Hamdan against the Secretary of Defense.

FireDogLake's Marcy Wheeler pulled together a list of congressmen using the Genentech lobbyist language. You can see them below:

Republicans:

Reps. Joe Wilson, Lynn Jenkins, Ted Poe, Darrell Issa, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Lee Terry, Jerry Moran, Mike Conaway, Kay Granger and Kevin McCarthy.

Democrats:

Reps. Bob Filner, Yvette Clarke, Bill Pascrell, Linda Sanchez, Phil Hare, Donld Payne, Robert Brady and Heath Shuler.

Back in May, in anticipation of the coming health care debate, Republican pollster, strategist and word smith Frank Luntz penned a memo (PDF) detailing key words and language to use to oppose the Democrats health care reform efforts. The memo stressed words like "rationing," "doctor-patient," "government takeover" and "bureaucrats." After putting these words through the Capitol Words search engine, it's pretty clear that Republicans are listening to Luntz' advice.

Over the past month, as the health care debate has really gotten off the ground, the use of these words in the Congressional Record has skyrocketed. See the numbers below:

"Rationing" goes from 18 uses in May to 90 uses in June. This marks the highest level of use for the word "rationing" in the Capitol Words database.

"Doctor-patient" goes from 6 uses in May to 20 in June. This marks the highest level of use for the word "doctor-patient" in the Capitol Words database.

"Takeover" goes from 13 uses in May to 106 in June. This marks the highest level of use for the word "takeover" in the Capitol Words database.

"Bureaucrats" goes from 53 uses in May to 78 uses in June. This marks the highest level of use for the word "bureaucrats" in the Capitol Words database.

All of these four terms are at their respective highest use points from 2001-2009. It can't be a coincidence that these words rise after the release of the Luntz memo. And if you look at the partisan breakdown of word use in the Congressional Record you'll find that these words are used almost exclusively by Republicans.

The word "rationing" is exemplary of this partisan split. The only Democrats to use the word are Sens. Dick Durbin and Patty Murray. However, Durbin uses the word in a speech denouncing the Luntz memo and Murray uses it in denouncing the use of the word. All other uses come from a variety of Republicans in both the House and the Senate.

"Doctor-patient" has a similar split with only three Democrats using the word. All other uses come from Republicans, largley from the Senate and more specifically the Senate Republican leadership.

The use of "takeover" is equally split along partisan lines. The Democrats using the word, Sens. Sherrod Brown, Byron Dorgan, and Murray, all use the word to criticize the use of it by Republicans with Sen. Murray explicitly criticizing the Luntz memo. The preponderance of use for "takeover," like the other words, comes from Republicans.

"Bureaucrats" falls along the same lines as the other three words. Democrats using the word, which is rare, use it to do one of two things: attack the use of it (Sen. Jeff Merkley directly attacks the Luntz memo) or use it in reference to bureaucrats in the health insurance industry. Republicans dominate this word, as they do the other three Luntz memo words.

In some cases, all of these words come together in one sentence, highlighting the strategy recommended by Luntz in his memo. These are two of the best examples (with my own highlighting):

Rep. Virginia Foxx: "While Democrats support raising taxes and rationing care, Republicans support health care reform that controls spending and that ensures patients and doctors make health care decisions, not a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington."

Rep. John Boehner: "The forthcoming plan from Democratic leaders will make health care more expensive, limit treatments, ration care, and put bureaucrats in charge of medical decisions rather than patients and doctors. That amounts to a government takeover of health care, and it will hurt, rather than help, middle-class families across our country."

Winning the battle over health care reform requires framing the debate by using key words to influence public opinion. Luntz' memo provides a view into how Republicans believe they can succeed at opposing reform efforts. Capitol Words helps us see the influence of that memo on the actual language of Republicans.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:

Various media outlets and bloggers, including the likes of CNET.com, the Associated Press, the National Journal, Lawrence Lessig and Craig Newmark, have covered and congratulated the Center for Responsive Politics' (CRP) for making its data records from OpenSecrets.org free for anyone to download. The Journal's "Tech Daily Dose" column reported that more than 120 people had downloaded bulk data within the first 24 hours of CRP opening up its archives.

The Washington Post's "The Reliable Source" column highlighted Capitol Words, which "slices and dices the entirety of the Congressional Record for your searching pleasure," they write. McClatchy's David Lightman reported that, in light of the financial crisis, words you would expect to be used by congressional lawmakers often, such as recession, bailout, stimulus and deficit do not crack the top 30 most frequently uttered terms so far this year. And Daphne Ritter with the New York Post looks at the top words used by several lawmakers from the Empire State's congressional delegation.

Alice Lipowicz with Federal Computer Week used OpenCongress data in writing about how only 10 congressional lawmakers (four senators and six reps) post their daily schedules on their official Web sites. New York Newsday editorialized about how Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) is blazing a trail in her congressional career by posting her schedule and personal financial disclosure reports online. "While (congressional lawmakers are) at it, they should make sure that information is easy to locate, archived and searchable, so that watchful voters can track, over time, the lobbyists and interest groups bending an official's ear," the editors wrote.

Last week, Ryan Singel at Wired's "Epicenter" blog wrote about Sunlight Labs' contest Apps for America, and asked his readers to vote for their favorites. This week, he reported back on the response he received, and issued what he terms the "Epicenter Reader's Choice award."

Speaking of Sunlight Labs, both Craig Newmark on his blog and Andrew Pratt at Science Progress praised the Labs' pre-design for the yet-to-be-launched Data.gov, the site that new White House CIO Vivek Kundra has promised will be an easy-to-use central repository of federal bulk data. "This is precisely the kind of work I've argued that the nonprofit and advocacy sphere needs to be engaged in right now," Pratt wrote.

The San Francisco Examiner editorialized about how Congress should exercise its oversight authority and find out where every last federal bailout dollar has been spent. The Examiner gives props to Anu Narayanswamy's Real Time Investigations expose' of the identity of senior U.S. Treasury officials who are also members of the Troubled Assets Relief Program's Investment Committee -- a small group that makes big decisions about which banks receive how much of our money.

The Washington Independent's Elana Schor reports on an analysis they conducted of House and Senate fundraising during the current election cycle compared to the previous cycles. Despite the economic downturn, their analysis showed significant upticks in campaign giving. Schor quotes Bill Allison, Sunlight's senior fellow, "For the average citizen, the election is over and they're not even going to think about it for the next four years." But the donors "who are paying close attention," have a vested interest in what Congress does -- or does not -- pass into law this year.

Thanks, and see you next week!

Want to know what lawmakers are talking about on Capitol Hill but you can't figure out how to get any worthwhile information out of the Congressional Record? Now there's help. The Sunlight Foundation is proud to announce the relaunch of Capitol Words with much expanded capabilities. Capitol Words gives an at-glance view of the inner workings of Congress by distilling each day in session into one, single word.

The new Capitol Words provides a calendar view of the word of the day and charts showing word usage trends going back to the second session of the 106th Congress (January 24, 2000). Views that attribute word usage to lawmakers date back to the beginning of the 110th Congress (January 3, 2007). Words are also able to be match together and compared. See whether "Saddam" or "Osama" is a more commonly used word, or "Health" or "Education." Other new functions are available and explained on the About page.

In many ways, Capitol Words serves as a zeitgeist-o-meter, as each word, when used over and over again, serves to reveal the pressing issue of the day (or sometimes helps explain the legislative process). For example, the top ten words of the year, aside from those reflecting the legislative process, all reveal what issues Congress found of paramount import to debate. Let's take a deeper look at these words:

1. Energy (50,140)

   While you may not remember now, gas prices were over $4.00 during the summer. Guess what Congress was talking about then? Energy Policy! During the summer months of June to September, "Energy" was the leading word of the day for 14 days. ("Energy" led all words in being the leading word for 16 days during the year.) In all, Congress voted on three bills with the word "Energy" in the title. These bills include the Energy and Tax Extenders Act of 2008, Comprehensive American Energy Security and Consumer Protection Act of 2008, and Energy Markets Emergency Act of 2008. Numerous other bills included important provisions related to energy. Before the total and complete meltdown of the American system of finance, "Energy" was the most debated policy priority of the year.

2. Health (41,001)

   Nearly every year, health care is a major issue in Congress. This year, the major bills under consideration included the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act and the Mental Health Parity Act. There was also an attempt to override President Bush's veto of the expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, a top priority of congressional Democrats. Another factor may have been National Public Health Week (April 7-13).

3. Service (37,287)

   One way that lawmakers use the Congressional Record is to honor members of their districts by including a letter in the Record with laudatory praise. Nearly all of these letters commend and honor the service of the individual or organization. Some samplings: "With 26 years of active commissioned service , Colonel Flowers has served our country in a variety of diverse assignments;" "John Playter might not be a household name for many, but his service to our country during World War II certainly earns him a leading role in America's Greatest Generation;" "I rise today to honor and celebrate the anniversary of Michigan Radio for 60 years of service to the state of Michigan and the citizens of Southeast Michigan." There are thousands of these letters inserted into the Record each year.

4. Public (32,428)

   This one doesn't exactly tell us what lawmakers are discussing but rather where they are discussing it: in the public sphere. See how it works: When our public officials are discussing public bills in the public arena the word "public" will undoubtedly wind up in the public record. Furthermore, public officials can commit public corruption by betraying the public trust. Also, and perhaps most important here, a very common headline in the Congressional Record is: Deletions of Sponsor From Public Bills and Resolutions.

5. Oil (32,198)

   Just like with "Energy," oil was a constant topic of conversation across the country this year. The concerns about high oil prices and high gas prices among citizens are reflected in the words of their elected representatives. Democrats sought to impose restrictions on the oil trading markets as prices per barrel spiked to never before seen highs. Republicans called for further oil exploration under the mantra "Drill here, drill now!" Only "Energy" had more days as the word of the day. Notably, the number one lawmaker saying "Oil," a total of 1,466 times, was Peak Oil enthusiast Roscoe Bartlett.

6. Report (30,858)

   Most all bills come equipped with an accompanying report. More importantly, every bill that dares to pass Congress will eventually be reconciled in a Conference Report. After reconciliation is complete, both chambers of Congress will vote on the Conference Report. And they talk a lot about that Report. Also, bills and resolutions are reported to the floor for a vote.

7. Provide (29,778)

   Bills provide for changes to previous legislation, or they provide certain monies or services to departments or groups of citizens. The word provide is necessary in both the writing of bills, which are introduced into the Congressional Record, and the discussion of them. There is simply no way to avoid using this word.

8. Security (29,241)

   Social Security, Homeland Security, national security, border security, port security, rail security, security clearance, cyber security, climate security, data security, security blanket. Could there be a better word for a politician? It's as though Frank Luntz and George Lakoff created a baby with the DNA extracted from a focus group.

9. Country (28,894)

   Is it possible to constantly talk about the country, and the passage of laws that affect the country, without using the word "country"? Short answer: No.

10. Percent (28,682)

    Every bill, every policy, every speech comes along with a set of statistics and those are represented by percentages. The percent of the tax rate one lawmaker wants to lower is the percent of the tax rate one lawmaker wants to raise. The same goes for the percent of auto emissions, the percent of the poverty rate, the percent of the budget. The language of policy requires the use of the word "percent," thus its prominence in this list.

I love how our Labs takes a great idea and makes it even better. Yesterday we announced our latest project, Capitol Words and today, we have a new widget so you can display the congressional word of the day on your site. Get it here.

Bush. Energy. Oil. Caribbean? These were the most frequently uttered words in Congress last week, brought to you courtesy of Sunlight's latest Web site, Capitol Words. Now, you can have an at-a-glance view into the daily proceedings of the United States Congress through the simplest lens available -- a single word.

For every day that Congress is in session, Capitol Words displays the most frequently used word in the Congressional Record, dating back to the second session of the 106th Congress (January 20, 2000). (The Congressional Record, published daily, is a complete account of the floor proceedings of the House and Senate.)

We created Capitol Words to make it easy to know what issues Congress is addressing on a daily basis. Whether the congressional word of the day matches up to an issue, an action or the name of a member of Congress, Capitol Words provides a snapshot of the main topic addressed by Congress for any given day. By looking at the site's calendar view, it's obvious that ‘energy' has been a hot topic in Congress this month.

Capitol Words is powered by LOUIS which scraped the Congressional Record on GPO Access. Our Labs also created an API so you can incorporate the word of the day in your applications.