Opengov

From BluWiki

[edit] Open Government

This is a temporary working space for the members of the Reddit community to contribute ideas on what real open government (Google for government) would look like. The idea is to come up with a single proposal that is better thought out and has better presentation than a bunch of individual emails. When we reach a consensus that this is ready, copies will be forwarded to Barack Obama's transition team and anyone else we think appropriate. Taking up a collection to have it laser etched on gold leaf is probably excessive, and would make it difficult to fix typos.

These terms will be submitted to:

• The Chief Technology Officer
• http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision
• http://www.change.gov/agenda/technology/
• Local and State Representatives

[edit] Legislative Items

Every legislative item that's up for consideration (having been presented by a Senator/House member) will be put into the system. If the item is an amendment to a bill or a current law, users of the system should be able to see the original law or bill, and what effect the changes would have on it. This should be in a visual diff format, to simplify the process of understanding what the change actually does to the body of law.

What this would mean, effectively, is that the laws of the United States would be placed under version control. When a lawmaker writes a bill that amends or adds to existing law, the law that is being changed or added to is "checked out" (a copy is made) and edited. This is automatically compared to the original (the current law as it is currently on the books). The differences (known as diffs) describe in exact and meticulous detail exactly what was changed to produce the new version. Version control has a long history in computer programming, and solves a number of known problems.

This proposal will be reminiscent of the current OPSI website in the UK. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/whatsnew

“Take features like reddit.com’s “crowd-sourcing” ability — that term is tech-speak for the process of capturing and applying collective wisdom,” he explains. “Now imagine a website showing every bill that’s introduced in the Legislature — then allows users to discuss and rate the bill’s effectiveness. How great would that be?” Kansas State Representative, Sean Tevis http://seantevis.com/weblog/story/interview-435-south-magazine/

[edit] Suggested Requirements

Bills and Amendments Online

• Interface for searching bills/amendments LegislativeSearch
• Interface for filtering bills by area of interest, possibly auto-generating feeds of those bills. LegislativeFilters

RSS Feeds

• RSS feed that lists new bills that have been submitted. RSS Feeds
• RSS feed that lists bills that have been changed status. RSS Feeds
• All appointments before Congress
• An aggregate feed of the Representatives/Senators from your state and their votes in the respective chamber with links to video/audio of the speeches they give
• Each committee containing the matters before them
• Each Representative and Senator individually and their voting record, speech record, proposal record, and a log of when/if they actually entered the chamber or voted from their office
• Commenting tools for bills and amendments to bills as they pass through the system. LegislativeComments
• Allow people to be notified when the status of bills change without having to track all the bills in the system. LegislativeTracking
• Campaign contributions
• Lobbyist visits
• Cases before the Supreme Court
• All Congressional testimony

Suggested System for Organizing the Bills

• Catagorize the bills based on their affected industries

Web API

• Web API for querying the system in an automated fashion and processing the results externally. LegislativeAPI
• Procedures and processes for accountability - each change has known originator(s) who are responsible for its introduction and these can be looked up within the system.

Websites for Reference

• http://www.opencongress.org/
• http://www.govtrack.us/
• http://thomas.loc.gov/
• http://www.opsi.gov.uk/legislation/whatsnew
• palm beach homes

Reddit Forum Link http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7bvwh/vote_up_if_you_think_the_government_should_have/