GovTrack Marks Two Decades of Tracking Congress

Oct 18, 2024 · by Joshua Tauberer

We know more today about what the U.S. Congress is doing, both the good and the bad, than ever before. That doesn’t mean Congress has become perfect. Transparency gives us an opportunity to hold powerful people and institutions accountable, but we have to use it.

This week you’re hearing from Josh, the founder of GovTrack.us. I launched GovTrack 20 years ago and I, along with our small team, are still at it.

Our legislative tracking tools, district maps, bill summaries, and legislator statistics have been used by tens of millions of students and educators, policy professionals, and voters, as well as by congressional office staff, political candidates, and journalists. We send out half-a-million emails every week to those of you subscribing to our bi-weekly analysis of activity in Congress.

We have also advocated to make Congress more open. And it’s worked. Features we pioneered on GovTrack including customized email alerts, advanced bill search filters, a calendar of upcoming committee meetings, zoomable Congressional district maps, and a data API for researchers and software developers — you can now find all of those on Congress’s official website Congress.gov. Over the years we’ve gotten to know the behind-the-scenes people working in Congress’s support offices building these tools and digitizing the law with an excitement that was hard to find when we started. I am rooting for them to make GovTrack obsolete.

But what I am proud of the most is seeing our users reach beyond rudimentary civics knowledge and media-driven fantasies to face the reality of how the legislative branch actually works.

I’ve been asked many times over the years if legislators have ever given us a hard time about shining a light on them. It’s never happened. More often than not they want the benefit of attention given to their legislation. And many legislators from both parties have been strong supporters of institutional reforms including transparency.

But this summer we were the target of a petty, dishonest, and vile attack from right-wing media, influencers, and their viewers over statistical noise in our numerical analysis of legislator behavior. It was a rough time for me. Transparency and accountability for Congress has more detractors than I realized.

There is more left for Congress to do. This year we began publishing bi-weekly summaries of what’s happening in Congress, and we wish we could write you with even more updates throughout the week because so much more significant legislation is moving through Congress than we have the space (or time and budget) to write about. Congress isn’t doing the work to let you know all about it in plain language — they should. We also publish a database of legislator misconduct because Congress’s ethics committees are not meeting our, or your, expectations.

Speaking of budget, did you know we have no full time employees? We’re all part time trying to make the most of GovTrack’s limited resources.

In some personal-professional news, I now serve on the first Open Government Federal Advisory Committee, an official executive-branch advisory body that has been asked to make recommendations to create a more open government. Daniel Schuman, who has been writing our legislative previews this year, has also been appointed to the committee — as its chair. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Finally, thank you for using our service, especially those of you who have sent feedback over the years (I read every message), and even more if you support us on Patreon or have a hide-the-ads subscription. And also thanks to our team, past and present.

Keep on tracking.