Hacking Legislatures
If there's a statute of limitations on event-blogging, this update probably exceeds it - thankfully, innovations in government transparency and citizen monitoring are always timely. Three weeks ago, Facebook teamed up with the offices of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer to host a "Congressional Hackathon." While no actual hacking took place during the event, it was a great opportunity to collaborate and brainstorm new ideas as part of an ongoing conversation about demand for legislative data, standards for sharing, and how to modernize constituent relations. Congressman Darryl Issa even announced a new platform that allows individuals to collaborate and mark up legislation with their own proposals and suggestions.
I attended with Andrew Mandelbaum, of the NDI governance team, to learn more about new innovations in open government and legislative monitoring. He recently wrote the book (okay, report) on parliamentary monitoring groups and their activities worldwide. And while I very much enjoyed hearing how open data organizations like the Sunlight Foundation and advocacy platforms like POPVOX are using US government data, I was surprised to realize that comparable innovations in technology for transparency, monitoring, and open government are coming from other countries, also. Highlights from the report include Congreso Visible, which tracks the Colombian parliament's bills and votes and even integrates this data into national newspapers' online editions. The Serbian Center for Research, Transparency, and Accountability runs a "truth-o-meter" evaluating politicians' public statements. The UK's They Work for You even tracks the usage of alliterative phrases in official speeches, while Chile's Vota Inteligente tracks election promises and their progress into law.
Andrew and the rest of the governance team are planning new ways to share more of these techniques and ideas among the monitoring organizations in the study. After watching how many good ideas can come from an event like the Congressional hackathon, I can't wait to see what broader collaboration among the monitoring innovators might bring about.