As one of the main organizers of the Congressional Committees Project, I recently wrote a diary about committee transparency. A few days later, I received an email from a member of Speaker-to-be Pelosi's staff, who had read my diary on transparency, and wanted to discuss our project with me.
I just got done with that conversation. What we discussed suggests great things about what we all won in November.
First a little background.
The Congressional Committees Project aims to create a forum where people can sign up and watch individual committees or subcommittees, so that we can be aware of things we might have otherwise miss. It started here, on November 11th. Interest and enthusiasm in the Daily Kos community was so great that within a few days we had a rather involved wiki page up and running, to help us get organized.
From Whom? Really?
It was very tempting, since I received the first email, to share my excitement with the Daily Kos community, but I decided that that would be inappropriate. I wanted to verify the source, and to establish ground rules for what I would write online. You all are a formidable group, after all, and Pelosi's staff is probably very busy right now reorganizing. It is going to be a new house, after all.
The New House
Our discussion has made me feel, even further than before, that most of us have no idea just what it is that we've won. A majority isn't just more votes. We'll have the chairs of the committees, a majority in each committee, a bigger budget for each committee, and more staffers for each committee.
That is big news for anyone who is interested in being able to pay attention to what goes on in committee, since the committee transcripts are very hard to obtain. With a larger staff, politicians interested in sharing information with the public will be able to do that. The politicians interested in doing that are the democrats, of course. And they're in charge now, for the first time in twelve years.
So What's Going to change?
Well, that's where you all come in. The staffer and I discussed several things that will hopefully be changing with the passage of the The Honest Leadership & Open Government Act. These things (that, as far as I know, should be happening soon) include: the text of bills being posted before their consideration, and conference committee hearings being held in the open.
That's not all, though. Speaker-to-be-Pelosi's office is interested in seeing our suggestions about how Congressional Committee websites are set up, and also on how they can most effectively share information with the netroots and the public.
I suggested the best I could think of: transcripts of all hearings that are open (some are closed due to what has to remain secret in them) available as soon as possible after they occur, along with audio or video of the hearings and meetings available nearly immediately if not live, with public archives available, and all of this available from a centralized location.
:)
Not all of that is going to happen. Not right away at least. The response, however, made me as happy as the ability to make the request. Pelosi and her staff seems to me to be completely committed to transparent government, and also sees the internet as essential to that goal. (That's a paraphrase.)
We discussed two things that are more likely to be doable in the near future without severely changing the way things are done. First, we talked about a House Committee RSS feed, which could signal the availability of things as they're public: transcripts, testimony, the text of bills up for consideration. We also discussed making the information not posted in .pdf format whenever possible.
Your input needed!
We're looking for your suggestions. They're going to be heard. Now is the right time to enact these changes, since the new power of the democratic congressional majority can now give us the power to see into and interact with our government like never before! As the staffer said, what was the internet in 1994?
I didn't know that much about congress a month ago, and I've done what I can over the last month, with the help of an amazing group of you. This is your opportunity to help shape the divide between government and public. They're not used to having a majority yet, and we're not used to having a government that actually appreciates the people they represent. There's only one way to feel out that relationship, and that's to begin.
What do you want? What might committees do to help share information with us? What should we know?