Daily Kos

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  •  There is an upside (4.00 / 13)

    10 years ago, nobody would have caught Leiberman's little trick. Only the inner most insiders would have followed the cloture vote that carefully. Now, a vote on cloture is a major issue to a lot of people who don't even watch c-span.

    Slowly but surely, politiblog is tearing down the curtain around the legislature and starting to hold representatives to account. This is a mini-revolution.

    Now all we need is a good website that tracks congress in a simple, easy to use way. Thomas, congress' own tracking site, is as easy to use as a spectrometer. I would think it's deliberately so except I've used NASA and the Library of Congress websites and they're not much better.

    It could still be deliberate though.

    TDV

    by TocqueDeville on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 02:02:05 PM PDT

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    •  Have you tried (none / 1)

      govtrack.us?

      by paranoidAmerican on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 02:35:07 PM PDT

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      •  Yeah (4.00 / 3)

        And I just went back and tried it again. While I strongly support the effort, it is still illogically laid out and vastly incomple in my opinion.

        But it appears to be a work in progress and I appreciate you recalling it to my attention.

        Mostly, I couldn't find Senate votes on this site. Maybe I'm missing something but it shouldn't be that hard.

        Also, the congressional votes I checked didn't have info about the bills or any supporting data. But it at least had who voted and how in a pretty accessable format which is more than I can say for Thomas.

        If I could design it it would be simple.

        Senate, House

        List of bills in real name, s#, and searchable subject.

        When you find one you want to check out, It has the text of the bill, who voted how in easily sortable by party. As in Ds who voted yeay, Ds who vote Nay etc.

        Then, really cool, a threaded comments section below each bill so we could thrash it.

        Check out this page on Washington Votes.org where they have a lively discussion about a bill in Wa. state legislature. This is an incredible idea.

        Except it's missing who voted for what. Or at least I can't find it.

        So imagine a site where you could scroll the latest bills, or search for "bankruptcy reform act" and when you click that entry you get the text, how members voted, which IMO is the most important thing, and a nice threaded comment section below.

        Also, my imaginary site would not be bipartisan. It would be a dem site with advocacy. It would be a real easy way with a few clicks to see which Dems sold us out, betrayed their party and deserve to be challenged in the primary.

        TDV

        by TocqueDeville on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 03:22:26 PM PDT

        [ Parent ]

        •  And one other thing (4.00 / 2)

          It should have some good analysis of the bill so people won't have to read the whole thing to know what it does.

          This isn't my idea really so I don't mind saying, this is a friggin revolutionary idea. Especially incorporated into dKos. No, the WIKI won't work. At least not without some serious modification to the software.

          This would engage people into the legislative process in a never seen before way and throw a big giant spotlight on congress that they so desperately need.

          TDV

          by TocqueDeville on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 03:30:02 PM PDT

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        •  Tracking senators and members of congress (none / 1)

          Is there a reliable source of information on who voted for what?

          GovTrack's site says that they assemble their information from various not always reliable sources.

          I would be willing to put together a database for this voting information if someone will help out by looking into sources of data.

          Ideally we would somehow be able to get voting data automatically for each senator or representative. If that's not possible, or not reliable, we might need to recruit volunteers to put in data on a regular basis from some human-readable source(s).

          The latter would be a lot of work, but maybe there would be a way to split it up among many people so that each person only has to do a little bit. Imagine 437 people putting in vote data on their own representative. Nah, there must be an easier way!

          "This document is totally non-redactable and non-segregable and cannot even be meaningfully described." *

          by dratman on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 07:27:48 PM PDT

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    •  excellent point (4.00 / 5)

      10 years ago, nobody would have caught Leiberman's little trick.

      hell, 5 years ago or even two. I know this because it's been making me crazy for a long time now.
      I got a good laugh out of Cokie Roberts the other day on NPR when she was complaining about Bloggers. Her main discomfort appeared to be that we are "questioning everything" (the disapproval in her voice was palpable). We must be annoying a great many people and clearly the annoyance is bipartisan:)

      Now all we need is a good website that tracks congress in a simple, easy to use way.

      Truely excellent idea.

      by colleen on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 02:46:35 PM PDT

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    •  One gov't website that works well: (none / 1)

      nps.gov, the National Park Service's  site; of course, if they don't get more money in the future, who knows?

      "There is no god, and I am his prophet." SocraticGadfly

      by steverino on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 03:17:06 PM PDT

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    •  I used it today, and it was not so nice (Thomas) (none / 0)

      You know, I thought the bankruptcy bill had passed early in 2001. I remember watching Wellstone screaming (wonderfully, in that way of his) against it during debate, about how bad it was for working people. The ergonomics bill was up too. Then I heard it had passed. And then a friend told me last year it hadnt, as we were discussing his own exp with Chapter 7.

      I came to learn via a nice little sum up from Bill Scher on MR that many more Dems voted for it then than this time( eg Hillary, Schumer, Leahy, Murray, Mulkowski and so on.). It went to the House with Schumer's poison pill amended on and just about got thru there too, in dealings, but a few righties just couldnt let the prolifers down in the end, I guess, so the pill prevailed. Weird.

      Anyway, Scher was saying that the senators, back then, were all going around praising it and acting disappointed,  saying, "Oh dear, this great bill got defeated?" Said that many of them have helped fashion it behind the scenes, to push it thru, even up till now. That disgusts me.

      So, what is the deal?  Odd that many flipped away from it this time. Do you think it is because of the re-energized base that so many more wouldnt put their names to it this time, they wish to lay low? You think they realize how bad things have gotten for the NONwealthy under Bush, that people cant be squeezed much more? That things are gonna get worse and this was one of the last resorts for a nation of a majority without a quality Europeanized safety net below it? What gives here?

      It was still too many voting Yea on this one (18), but last time it was twice as many. Thirty-six Dem YEAs in 2001.

      The Small Club of GOOD Senatorial Votes against the bankruptcy bill in 2001 were:

      Democrats Who Voted No:

      Jon Corzine, N.J.; Mark Dayton, Minn.; Chris Dodd, Conn.; Dick Durbin, Ill.; Russ Feingold, Wis.; Tom Harkin, Iowa; Ted Kennedy, Mass.; John Kerry, Mass (ah! The Kerry I used to like so much).; Bill Nelson, Fla.; Jack Reed, R.I.; John Rockefeller, W.Va.; Paul Sarbanes, Md.; Paul Wellstone, Minn.

      Honorable mention:

      Not Voting:
      Barbara Boxer (California)

      Common Dreams wrote a very good tough piece on this 2001 Dem sell out behavior with links to each one's email.  

      Should a "progressive" Dem blog dwell in the safe zones of a tame party, or should it drive a tame party to break out?

      by NYCee on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 10:43:33 PM PDT

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