Slashdot Mirror
US Gov't Representatives - Who's Who?
melankolik asks: "With all the issues emerging these days related to DRM, 'piracy', anti-trust, civil rights, big business, et al, and with tech-illiterate politicians passing laws of dubious intent or results, it can be hard to tell who the Good Guys and the Bad Guys are in our government (more realistically, who supports the Good and Bad legislation). What information can any of you politically savvy Slashdot readers offer to someone taking an interest in the political machine regarding the past and present legislation, stances, and agendas of our friendly neighborhood Senators, Governors, and other representatives?" As complex as politics are, there may not be "good guys" and "bad guys", and instead those who support your politics on some issues, and not on others. Even so, it would be interesting to know how the representatives vote on specific issues, especially those that deal with computers and online rights. Has anyone been compiling this information?
Wha'dya know, I just had an idea for a website that would fit this.
Basicly, it was a 'framework' for a legislature(local, state, federal) that would cross-reference each bill or legislation with how each member voted... Want to know who is pro-abortion, simple query. Want to see all the Democrats that voted for Bush's XYZ legislation, simple stuff... Who is on what committee, and so on.
The beauty is, if this was done open source, then it could be applied to all 50 state legislatures (and other countries!) along with Congress, so there would be a fairly large(relative) demand for such a system.
I don't have the time to write an extensive essay detailing his crimes against the public interest, not the least of which is the CTEA, DMCA, Carnivore, Patriot Act, and any other cute acronym you can think of.
You can google him or search slashdot. Getting him out of office would go a LONG way to promoting the public interest. I don't care if it's another republican, or an eggplant. Just that it would be better for the public interest if he were to leave office.
If you disagree with me, I would look in the mirror and say outloud "corporate whore".
If anybody is bad to the bone, it's him.
I'm jumping into this rather late, but I'm surprised no one else has mentioned the Project Vote Smart. Just go to vote-smart.org and it'll tell you who your federal representatives are, at the federal and state level. It tells when they're up for re-election, their voting record on various issues, and their ratings by various interest groups. It's definitely helped me to be a more informed voter.