Progressive Political Database for the House and Senate

In the past few days there's been a fair amount of chatter (and some well-researched diaries) here stemming from dissatisfaction with the lack of public information about up-and-coming bills in the House and the Senate.  Of course, the information is publicly available via Thomas, but getting useful information from there on a particular subject can often be like drinking from a firehose.  And, unfortunately, Thomas is not organized to answer some pretty basic questions.

Over at Irregular Times, we've rolled out a preliminary version of what we hope will be a partial solution: a database of contact information, voting records and bill cosponsorships for all members of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

It works like this...

On both sets of webpages, you can check in for daily-updated legislative records of members of Congress on bills of progressive interest. Every member can be found listed by alphabetical order, by state, or by ranking. That's right, each member has a ranking called a Progressive Action Score, which is the percentage of the progressive legislative actions (voting on or cosponsoring bills) we've identified that the member has engaged in.  There's a link to progressive organizations in each member's home state.  Finally, we maintain contact information for each Representative and Senator.

We've been learning on the fly as we build this puppy, and it's been developed to a stage that I hope it will be of some use.  But we could really use your criticisms and suggestions at this point.  I'd appreciate it if you'd follow the above links, check it out, and give me your most honest feedback.

•  Coming up...

  I plan to post a regular diary here on Kos listing those Democrats who are most on board with the progressive agenda, and those Democrats (sadly more than a few) who have failed to follow that agenda.

  by theolock on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 04:31:56 AM PDT

  •  Good work, theolock ! n/t

    by canberra boy on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 04:35:46 AM PDT

•  Looks great

  you may be able to supplement with or cross-link to

  www.congress.org

  which also has some bill-tracking features

  by JLFinch on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 04:47:38 AM PDT

•  This is wonderful

  This represents an incredible amount of work and I appreciate all the effort. I will be cross-posting the URL to some other discussion boards, if you don't mind.

  by terribfromMA on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 05:59:59 AM PDT

  •  Thanks, Yes

    Thanks, yes.  I'd appreciate any spreading of the word on this.

    by theolock on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 07:20:34 AM PDT

•  Thanks -- Additions to Ranking System?

  Thanks for everyone's comments so far.

  Are there particular bills or votes that you believe are must-includes for a progressive ranking of the House or Senate?

  by theolock on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 07:21:42 AM PDT

•  theolock

  You should consider going over to the open thread and posting about this diary.  
  I think that there are many people, particularly those who form the letter writing brigade, who would find this database extremely helpful.

  by kdrivel on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 07:56:26 AM PDT

•  Next level

  Voting records often tell less than action in Committee. it's not uncommon, nor unprincipled, for a Member, especially in the minority, to vote for a bad bill as a tradeoff for getting the worst provisions stripped.

  by ben masel on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 08:14:49 AM PDT

  •  Is this still true?

    The Republicans don't act that way any more.  Why should our side?

    by abbyv on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 08:33:25 AM PDT

    •  Varies with Committee

      Some Chairs try to ram things thru on Party line vote, but in others there's give and take, crossing Party lines on the exact language, especially when the interests involved are more regional than partisan. You'll be seeing this, for instance, in the Farm bill, as grain, cotton, livestock, and dairy producers fight for the diminishing spoils.

      In House Judiciary there'll be crossparty play on the fine print of PATRIOT Act renewal, with libertarian-minded Republicans teaming with the more liberal dems against policestaters both Dem and GOP.

      by ben masel on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 10:35:20 AM PDT

•  Cheers for the New Jersey guys! n/t

  by reform dem on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 08:24:28 AM PDT

•  Question about the scoring

  The CSA is market-based.  Could there be genuine progressives who oppose H.R. 759 on that basis?

  by abbyv on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 08:58:41 AM PDT