[Discuss] keeping an eye on congress

[dcrookston at gmail.com (Daniel C.)]

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Tom Metro <tmetro-blu at vl.com> wrote:
> There ought to be a service (and perhaps there is, but I haven't ran
> across it) that publishes a summarized, easily digestible report of what
> legislation is coming up in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
> Probably a version that is packaged up weekly, and another version that
> sends out a daily report. Something you can get via email, RSS, or
> Twitter. Something that includes links to a feedback channel that allows
> you to supply your "for" or "against" vote, and optional comments, to
> your reps.

I've considered launching a service (called something like Political
Inaction) that does something like this.  You'd get regular digests
that summarize the bills before your governing bodies (state,
national, whatever) with links to more in-depth coverage.  Ideally
there'd be articles behind the links with "balanced" for and against
blurbs.  (I realize it's impossible to actually get anything written
in this area that's really balanced.)  Then the person reading it
could click the "for" or "against" box, and the summary of this
information would be transmitted to the representative's office in a
way that's useful to them.  Constituents could also get a summary of
how their rep voted in relation to their preference - x% the same as,
or different than, the constituent's preferences.

There are obviously a lot of problems with this - but it would be
better than nothing, eh?  Hell, even an easily accessible list of
votes made by your reps (which you could find just by putting in your
zip code) would be a step in the right direction, and it wouldn't be
too hard to put together.  Does anyone know where this information can
be located?

-Dan