The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee favorably reported a number of transparency related bills at a markup earlier today.... View Article
Continue readingFinland Experiments With Citizen-Introduced Legislation
The online magazine Slate reports that Finland recently launched an open-source web platform called Open Ministry to allow citizens to propose legislation, which must be voted upon by Parliament if it receives the online attention of 50,000 citizens. "Each suggested law gets six months to gather traction. Whether the majority is in favor or not doesn’t matter, as anything with 50,000 total shares (likes or dislikes) moves on to the next, official round of voting. Two weeks ago, a proposal to ban the practice of farming animals for the fur trade became the first Open Ministry idea to pass the threshold for Parliament[ary] consideration. Out of the roughly 340 pitches currently on the site, the fur-trade idea is far and away the most popular, having collected more than 56,000 shares with the majority in favor of the ban."
Continue readingAgency Report Transparency Bill Set for Markup Tomorrow
Tomorrow the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act will get its turn in the spotlight. The legislation, which would require reports... View Article
Continue readingSpending Transparency Bill DATA Act Inches Toward House Vote
In anticipation of a House vote, today a major transparency bill was posted online for public comment by the Committee... View Article
Continue reading“Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act” Advances to the House Floor
Legislation that would require copies of congressionally mandated reports to be published online by GPO cleared a major hurdle when... View Article
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