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US Senate & House Create YouTube Channels
eldavojohn writes "Following an election in which online videos played an important role, the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate have opened YouTube channels (or 'hubs') advertised to be a 'backstage pass to your government.' Ideally this will bring transparency to citizens and inform them of their senators' & representatives' positions and ideas."
Which is unfortunate but true. Most people do not care about their government.
Even more unfortunate is that I cannot download these videos, at least not without violating the TOS, and so I cannot store my own copies of those proceedings.
Palm trees and 8
When the federal budget is released in a well-documented, well-designed XML file format.
Here is a nice human interest video from Pelosi:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wtOW1CxHvNY
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There is a bill being aggressively pushed by DownsizeDC, the Read The Bills Act, which requires not just that the congressmen read the bill, but requires each bill to be read aloud in session before it can be voted on. This ensures that all congressmen voting on the bill will have heard its text, and it will also do a lot to cut the size of these monstrosities.
In addition, the bill must be posted online 7 days in advance, and no changes may be made without resetting that 7-day period, ensuring that the public can see and react to exactly what will be passed.
Everyone whose heard of this thing (and is not in the political class) is for it, and there's been enough pressure that the House Minority Leader requested the 7-day full-text posting of Obama's stimulus package. It's a great step, and it shows that the pressure from the electorate's phone calls and messages is working, but there's no reason that it should only be applied to a single bill.
The other bill they're pushing for, which I'll mention here because it also represents another process to improve our quality of legislation, is the One Subject at a Time Act. It's pretty self-explanatory, and would end the use of "riders" - sneaking unpopular chunks of legislation (or pork) into other popular or necessary bills.
If you want to see these changes made, one of the best things you can do is to raise awareness of these bills, call your congressmen, and convince your friends and family to do the same.
Your brain is not a computer.