Yesterday, Roll Call and Gallery Watch launched CongressNow.com, which will provide a daily (2:30 PM) report on the most recent legislative action in Congress.

It could be a great tool for web journalists and citizens who want to follow Congress daily. There’s a big problem: it requires a subscription. This is Congress, and people will find other ways to get the same information. There’s a second problem once you’re inside–the links to the bills are links to Gallery Watch descriptions of bills, which also requires a subscription.

If CongressNow.com wants to become a hub for citizens using the web to learn about Congress–which it could–it should link, instead, to OpenCongress, our new, very free, open source tool that gives direct and contextual information about each bill, and allows citizens to contribute their own input.