Coalition pushes for Web 2.0 on Capitol Hill

A bipartisan coalition of nonprofits, watchdogs and bloggers are calling on the House to go Web 2.0.

The Open House Project, led by the Sunlight Foundation, one of Washington's newest transparency advocates, released a report yesterday to push Congress to update its antiquated use of the Internet and open its doors a little wider to the public.

{mosads}"Our goal has not been to radically rework House rules," Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, said. Instead, the project hopes to expand disclosure and transparency on Capitol Hill where it is workable with the rules in place.

Described by Miller as a “collaborative process” with dozens of groups and individuals involved, the report lays out 10 recommendations that would drastically update Congress’s use of the Internet and the manner in which it stores and presents its legislative work.

Among the report’s recommendations are requests for the House to publish its own legislative data in structured formats so others outside Congress can use it more easily; archive its past work, such as witnesses’ testimony before congressional committees; and open Capitol Hill’s halls to bloggers.

The coalition behind the report crossed both sides of aisle, with help from the liberal blog Daily Kos as well as the conservative Heritage Foundation. Interested parties can still comment on the report itself at www.theopenhouseproject.com.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) attended the press conference.

“Good government isn’t a liberal idea. It isn’t a conservative idea,” said Boehner, congratulating the coalition on its report. “I have been a long-time believer that sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

Miller agreed with Boehner on the need for more transparency, adding, “Never underestimate the deterrent effect of being embarrassed.”

Boehner cited working on THOMAS — Congress’s legislative database — in the mid-1990s. But Capitol Hill is behind the times with its use of the Internet, according to the coalition.

David All, president of his own Republican Web consulting firm, described House rules for the Web as “arcane” and born during the Internet’s infancy.

“We had to break every rule in the book, which you don’t want to do too often when you are working with a member of Congress,” said All, speaking about his past online work with Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) as a Capitol Hill staffer.

All produced a YouTube video along with Democratic consultant Philip De Vellis, the author of the pro-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) “1984” Web ad, to promote the report.

One of the report’s toughest recommendations is to make all studies by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) publicly available. Non-partisan, objective analysis by CRS is designed for members only, but a cottage industry has sprung up in trading them all over Washington, costing as much as $50 per report, according to one of the groups behind the recommendation.

“Essentially, they are putting an intellectual property mark on a public document,” said Leslie Harris, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), an open-government group.

According to a leaked March 2007 memo, CRS analysts must have their senior managers sign off on any reports being released outside of Congress.

CDT runs a website, www.opencrs.com, that provides access to the CRS reports that the group can grab hold of. In less than two years on the Web, more than 13,000 reports have been made available, with users downloading documents more than 4 million times, according to CDT.

There were plans for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to attend the press conference, but her staff was present instead.

In addition, the Speaker released a letter yesterday, offering support for the project by writing that the House must “ensure that the people are able to hear us.”
 
“The Speaker’s Office has been following this project from the beginning and we are going to meet with them later this week,” said Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for Pelosi.

John Wonderlich, a Sunlight Foundation program director, will be meeting with Pelosi and other members to push for the report’s recommendations.