WASHINGTON (Dec. 19, 2014) — The U.S. Senate will deliver access to its legislative information in modern, open data formats, starting when the 114th Congress convenes in January 2015.

That announcement was made at yesterday’s public stakeholder meeting of the Legislative Branch Bulk Data Task Force. The Senate will join the legislative data publishing system created by the Government Printing Office and originally launched for all 113th Congress House bills in January 2013.

“Complete, digital and modern access to America’s most important information — our laws and legislation — is now in view,” said Seamus Kraft, executive director of The OpenGov Foundation and a Congressional Data Coalition steering committee member.  “Though the Senate won’t catch up to the House on open legislative data overnight, upper chamber implementation should be fast and efficient, thanks to the fantastic foundation laid by the staff of  the House Clerk, Library of Congress, GPO, House Administration Committee, Speaker Boehner and others.  It’s amazing what Congress can accomplish with non-partisan teamwork, sustained public engagement and a clear focus to deliver better results for all Americans.”

“In the modern age, public access to legislative information must include digital access,”  said Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s Daniel Schuman, a founding CDC steering committee member.  “The Senate’s move to join the House in releasing information about legislation in useful formats provides a stable platform for innovation and public access to the work of government. While there is still more to do, this is a tremendous step forward.”

“This is great news for both the public and scholars studying our national legislature,” adds R Street Institute Governance Project Director Kevin Kosar. “Making this data available in a very useful format will help give us a better view of our national legislature’s work.”.

Today’s announcement builds on years of non-partisan collaboration across Congress and civil society groups like the OpenGov Foundation and Congressional Data Coalition.  It paves the way for the completion of  work to modernize and improve public access to the most important information in our democracy.  .,

“The House of Representatives’ collective efforts to make its activities more open and transparent to the public,” Schuman said “For proof, one merely needs to look to the series of annual transparency conferences, the ongoing meetings of the Legislative Bulk Data Task Force, the recent Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill, the creation of docs.house.gov, the ongoing upgrades to rules.house.gov, the updated version of the U.S. code, and so on.”

Click here to visit the GPO’s bulk legislative data portal, which will grow to include Senate data over the course of 2015.  And click here to read the Congressional Data Coalition’s open legislative information primer for non-geeks.

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