“Thomas was and continues to be at the cutting edge for government transparency for 1995,” that’s the accusation from Daniel Schuman a policy council at the Sunlight Foundation.
Thomas provides the public access to basic legislative information like bills, resolutions and committee hearings.
Basically, Thomas was opening up government before transparency was cool. But while the world has changed alot since 1995, Thomas hasn’t changed as much.
“Thomas used to be the primary source for information but because it has an old and clunky interface it can’t do a lot of things the government wants,” said Schuman.
The Big Problems
- Congress does not make the data available in API formats
- Instead they take useful information and dumb it down and put it online as individual web pages.
- Congress has literally hundreds of thousands of web pages that are difficult to keep authentic, accurate and authoritative.
“It’s almost impossible for the public to take the Humpty Dumpty webpages and put it back together again,” said Schuman.
Three months ago the House pledged to make bulk access a priority for the Congress. But so far there hasn’t been much movement. The beta version of the new Thomas is expected to be released sometime this month. This will be te first update to the site in more than 10 years.
But Schuman is skeptical, “the real benchmark will be has there been real progress,”
Why is Thomas important:
- “We’ve already seen the information on Thomas help citizens write more informed and compelling letters to their Congressmen,” said Schuman
- 1 in 5 citizens have logged onto Thomas in the past 13 years.
The Sunlight Foundation has released a report on how to save Thomas.
Recommendations on Bulk Access to Congress’s Legislative Information
Also on the DorobekINSIDER
- Read the 7-stories you need to know… including a new hire at the top of GSA
- E-government — the term has been evolving for years and it is increasingly key to how agencies accomplish their mission. But there aren’t universal best practices. Now there’s a new book out on the issue.You’ll hear from the author.
- It’s been a rough few months for federal employees. But there were some shining spots for some feds this summer. Like the NASA scientists who successfully landed the Curiosity Rover on Mars, or the federal firefighters battling the wildfires out west. It really was the summer for exceptional federal leadership stories. You’ll hear some of them.
- Find our e-mail newsletter, archives, discussions, resources.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.