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Archive for the ‘Site News’ category.

Posts about new GovTrack features, media coverage, and other site developments.

November 11, 2008

Seeing the other person's side

Author: Josh Tauberer - Categories: Site News
More posts by Josh Tauberer.

Sometimes I get really frustrated with politics, which has become so much about denying, oppressing, and outspending the other viewpoint rather than debate and consensus. GovTrack received this question through the bill Q&A system:

Why does anyone think our government has the right to allow women to murder their children?  What can be done to ensure this bill never passes?

and it just makes me want to shut the site down and move on with life. Read it all..

November 8, 2008

What happens when the clock strikes 2009?

Author: Josh Tauberer - Categories: Site News
More posts by Josh Tauberer.

Now that we’ve passed election season, things are pretty much wrapping up in the legislative branch. The House has already adjourned and will start a new session on January 3, 2009, according to the resolution . The Senate is still in session and will meet this month, but without the House they will probably not push any measures forward. Read it all..

November 1, 2008

GovTrack hits 50,000 registered users

Author: Josh Tauberer - Categories: Site News
More posts by Josh Tauberer.

We’ve hit the 50,000 mark, the number of people that have created an account on the site to configure their trackers and get email updates. More updates coming in a few weeks.

September 9, 2008

Welcome to GovTrack's Fourth Year

Author: Josh Tauberer - Categories: Site News
More posts by Josh Tauberer.
. (Thanks to for the data!)
  • I have written a page on Tips for Commnicating With Congress

    . Should you write your rep? What should you include? Take a look.

  • now include some cute pie charts

    , and, also, the time of day when the vote happened, in case you’re doing some deep research.

  • Pages for representatives now show a little map

    for their congressional district and a listing of the counties and towns in the district. See .

  • Bills pages now show related pages based on what GovTrack users have selected as trackers. You have to go to the Related Bills page for a bill. See . This will help you find legislation that has superseded the bill you are looking at, for instance.
  • The feed and bill status that you can embed on your webpage (which by the way we had first) can now be customized easier.

    • And for developers:

    • There is a new page.
    • The congressional district look-up API now supports lat/long, addresses, ZIP codes, and ZIP+4 codes. You may not know about the three other APIs either: see the page.

    But much more is in the works. We’ll be completely overhauling our bill text page for easier navigation and comparison of bill text and to let you link directly from your website to particular paragraphs within bills, and to embed paragraphs in widgets on your own website — to help you make your case in your own writings. We’ll also be expanding and improving on the statistics we generate for Members of Congress, providing a new set of “indicators” to get the big picture on what your rep is actually doing. Lastly we hope to integrate some campaign contribution data to get another perspective.

    July 6, 2008

    Questions and Answers: Your questions, your answers!

    Author: Josh Tauberer - Categories: Site News
    More posts by Josh Tauberer.

    Last week I added a new feature to GovTrack called Community Q&A. It was inspired by a question I received by mail (the subject of my last blog post). If one person that has a question actually took the time to email, then there must be hundreds of other questions you all have but haven’t asked. Read it all..

    December 21, 2007

    See you on the flip side of winter recess

    Author: Josh Tauberer - Categories: Site News
    More posts by Josh Tauberer.

    Congress is on break until mid January, so we’ll be going into a bit of hibernation here at GovTrack. Check back when Congress resumes mid January for the new GovTrack Community Blog

    , legislative analysis written by and for the users of this site.

    Also, a quick plug for , a conference at Princeton, January 14-15 where I’ll be a panelist.

    And if you’re bored and looking for something to read, you might be interested in

    for some news on congressional transparency, open data, and related issues.

    November 27, 2007

    Second Call for Bloggers

    Author: Josh Tauberer - Categories: Site News
    More posts by Josh Tauberer.

    I received a few encouraging replies to an earlier post about you blogging here

    . I want to get some nonpartisan, thoughtful analysis of legislative issues posted on the front page here. If you’re interested in blogging here, drop me a note by emailing me at the address at the bottom of the page. [Update 12/1/07: I'm really delighted by all of the responses. Keep them coming! I fully expect a "community blog" will start up by the end of 2007.]

    October 28, 2007

    Want to blog here?

    Author: Josh Tauberer - Categories: Site News
    More posts by Josh Tauberer.

    It just occurred to me that with some 500 people per day viewing GovTrack’s homepage, and since I don’t post site news all that often, maybe others would like to join me and blog legislation-related news and information (like I used to do in 2006) on the front page of the site? If you’re interested, drop me an email at the address at the bottom of the site.

    October 23, 2007

    He he.

    Author: Josh Tauberer - Categories: Site News
    More posts by Josh Tauberer.

    Totally not useful to anyone, but I thought I’d share— I’m confirmed attendee #9 to a conference in December, and #10 is a hero of mine, to the extent I have any heroes. Can’t wait.

    October 22, 2007

    Downloadable/Printable District Maps

    Author: Josh Tauberer - Categories: Site News
    More posts by Josh Tauberer.

    Just added a new feature: high-resolution district maps that can be downloaded (and printed), with no unreasonable copyright restrictions. To get the maps, find the district map,

    , and look below the map for download options. The downloadable maps use street data from

    which is (incredibly) made available with the only restriction that if you copy the map, you provide credit back to them. Since we add the district outline overlay here, to copy these maps you have to credit both GovTrack and TOPP.

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