There's no direct way to determine when a bill has a cosponsorship
change, and there are too many bills to scan all of them. (Fetching
pages at the maximum limit around the clock might work and would hit
every bill once every day or so, but I prefer not to hammer THOMAS.)

Someone suggested to me that it might be possible to figure out what to
update by scanning the congressional record.

So if it's important, that's where you can look to start hacking!

(And, yes, any issues like this should be posted here.)

Josh


David Breakdance wrote:
> Hi Josh,
>
> David here. I believe this is the place where you requested we post issues,
and if not, please correct me, thanks in advance.
>
> I believe this is a known issue, something I understand has been examined
before and which likely occurs as a result of changes on Thomas' end: the #s of
co-sponsors of certain bills differs b/w Thomas & GovTrack (and hence
OpenCongress, of course). At a quick-fast first glance it occurs in 7 of our 24
most-viewed bills, so it's not every bill, just some, and there's no immediately
determinate reason as to why that I see.
>
> Will paste examples below for reference-- I'm pasting a number of examples in
a simple effort to help pinpoint the problem, trying to share what we've found,
you know how it goes. I realize Thomas permalinks are problematic and generally
don't work, but I'll post them here anyway for reference.
>
> H.R. 1207, Thomas shows 84 ::
>
> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:h.r.01207
>
> ... GovTrack shows 55 ::
>
> http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1207
>
> ###
>
> S.482, Thomas shows 37 ::
>
> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s482:
>
> ... GovTrack shows 33 ::
>
> http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-482
>
> ###
>
> ... quicker format for the rest ::
>
> H.R.1409 GT is -1
> H.R.875 GT is +1
> H.R.1960 GT is -5
> H.R.1841 GT is -2
> S.21 GT is -1
>
> ###
>
> ... hope this info helps kick off a process towards a fix, let me know if we
can help in any specific way take a look at anything, and as I mentioned before,
realize it's likely due to changes on Thomas' end, not yours. Call or write
anytime for help, happy to kick in.
>
> Thanks very much!
> -David
>
> drm@...
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

FWIW, here's how we handle this issue:

We use THOMAS' browse by type feature, which displays pages like this
(this one contains HR 1207)

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/d?d111:1200:./list/bss/d111HR.lst:[[o]]&it\
ems=100&|TOM:/bss/111search.html|

And grab our basic bill information, including number of cosponsors,
for those bills. We do this twice a day, and it doesn't take very long
since we're grabbing 100 bills' details at a time rather than loading
each bill.

Derek

On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 5:27 PM, Josh Tauberer <tauberer@...> wrote:
>
>
> There's no direct way to determine when a bill has a cosponsorship
> change, and there are too many bills to scan all of them. (Fetching
> pages at the maximum limit around the clock might work and would hit
> every bill once every day or so, but I prefer not to hammer THOMAS.)
>
> Someone suggested to me that it might be possible to figure out what to
> update by scanning the congressional record.
>
> So if it's important, that's where you can look to start hacking!
>
> (And, yes, any issues like this should be posted here.)
>
> Josh
>
> David Breakdance wrote:
>> Hi Josh,
>>
>> David here. I believe this is the place where you requested we post
>> issues, and if not, please correct me, thanks in advance.
>>
>> I believe this is a known issue, something I understand has been examined
>> before and which likely occurs as a result of changes on Thomas' end: the #s
>> of co-sponsors of certain bills differs b/w Thomas & GovTrack (and hence
>> OpenCongress, of course). At a quick-fast first glance it occurs in 7 of our
>> 24 most-viewed bills, so it's not every bill, just some, and there's no
>> immediately determinate reason as to why that I see.
>>
>> Will paste examples below for reference-- I'm pasting a number of examples
>> in a simple effort to help pinpoint the problem, trying to share what we've
>> found, you know how it goes. I realize Thomas permalinks are problematic and
>> generally don't work, but I'll post them here anyway for reference.
>>
>> H.R. 1207, Thomas shows 84 ::
>>
>> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:h.r.01207
>>
>> ... GovTrack shows 55 ::
>>
>> http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1207
>>
>> ###
>>
>> S.482, Thomas shows 37 ::
>>
>> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s482:
>>
>> ... GovTrack shows 33 ::
>>
>> http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-482
>>
>> ###
>>
>> ... quicker format for the rest ::
>>
>> H.R.1409 GT is -1
>> H.R.875 GT is +1
>> H.R.1960 GT is -5
>> H.R.1841 GT is -2
>> S.21 GT is -1
>>
>> ###
>>
>> ... hope this info helps kick off a process towards a fix, let me know if
>> we can help in any specific way take a look at anything, and as I mentioned
>> before, realize it's likely due to changes on Thomas' end, not yours. Call
>> or write anytime for help, happy to kick in.
>>
>> Thanks very much!
>> -David
>>
>> drm@...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>



--
--
Derek Willis
dwillis@...

Thanks, Derek. That's great. I'm implementing that now.

Still, if a cosponsor is added while another is removed so the total
doesn't change, we still can't pick it up, but this is much better.

There is also other bill metadata that isn't reflected in the summary on
the list pages that won't necessarily get updated when it changes- when
subject terms are assigned, new summaries, etc.

- Josh Tauberer
- GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)

On 04/28/2009 10:23 PM, Derek Willis wrote:
> FWIW, here's how we handle this issue:
>
> We use THOMAS' browse by type feature, which displays pages like this
> (this one contains HR 1207)
>
>
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/d?d111:1200:./list/bss/d111HR.lst:[[o]]&it\
ems=100&|TOM:/bss/111search.html|
>
> And grab our basic bill information, including number of cosponsors,
> for those bills. We do this twice a day, and it doesn't take very long
> since we're grabbing 100 bills' details at a time rather than loading
> each bill.
>
> Derek
>
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 5:27 PM, Josh Tauberer<tauberer@...>  wrote:
>>
>> There's no direct way to determine when a bill has a cosponsorship
>> change, and there are too many bills to scan all of them. (Fetching
>> pages at the maximum limit around the clock might work and would hit
>> every bill once every day or so, but I prefer not to hammer THOMAS.)
>>
>> Someone suggested to me that it might be possible to figure out what to
>> update by scanning the congressional record.
>>
>> So if it's important, that's where you can look to start hacking!
>>
>> (And, yes, any issues like this should be posted here.)
>>
>> Josh
>>
>> David Breakdance wrote:
>>> Hi Josh,
>>>
>>> David here. I believe this is the place where you requested we post
>>> issues, and if not, please correct me, thanks in advance.
>>>
>>> I believe this is a known issue, something I understand has been examined
>>> before and which likely occurs as a result of changes on Thomas' end: the #s
>>> of co-sponsors of certain bills differs b/w Thomas&  GovTrack (and hence
>>> OpenCongress, of course). At a quick-fast first glance it occurs in 7 of our
>>> 24 most-viewed bills, so it's not every bill, just some, and there's no
>>> immediately determinate reason as to why that I see.
>>>
>>> Will paste examples below for reference-- I'm pasting a number of examples
>>> in a simple effort to help pinpoint the problem, trying to share what we've
>>> found, you know how it goes. I realize Thomas permalinks are problematic and
>>> generally don't work, but I'll post them here anyway for reference.
>>>
>>> H.R. 1207, Thomas shows 84 ::
>>>
>>> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:h.r.01207
>>>
>>> ... GovTrack shows 55 ::
>>>
>>> http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1207
>>>
>>> ###
>>>
>>> S.482, Thomas shows 37 ::
>>>
>>> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s482:
>>>
>>> ... GovTrack shows 33 ::
>>>
>>> http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-482
>>>
>>> ###
>>>
>>> ... quicker format for the rest ::
>>>
>>> H.R.1409 GT is -1
>>> H.R.875 GT is +1
>>> H.R.1960 GT is -5
>>> H.R.1841 GT is -2
>>> S.21 GT is -1
>>>
>>> ###
>>>
>>> ... hope this info helps kick off a process towards a fix, let me know if
>>> we can help in any specific way take a look at anything, and as I mentioned
>>> before, realize it's likely due to changes on Thomas' end, not yours. Call
>>> or write anytime for help, happy to kick in.
>>>
>>> Thanks very much!
>>> -David
>>>
>>> drm@...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
>

Back in May I announced that I was starting a nifty experiment in having
individuals write a group letter to Congress. I started up a letter on
MixedInk.com to oppose HR 45, a gun control bill. (The choice of topic
was one of opportunity- I knew there were enough visitors that had that
opinion to support writing that letter.)

The writing process ended last week with 450 participants, who created a
letter that is actually pretty good. I was surprised, and impressed.
Right now I'm running it as a petition to get signatures so that when I
deliver the letter to Members of Congress later on, they know that real
people back this bill. This is intended to be a mix between a personal
letter and a petition. It's meant to aggregate voices but in a way that
takes a certain amount of effort, in the hopes that Members respect what
went into creating the letter (as opposed to with a petition).

You can see the letter here:
http://www.govtrack.us/special/hr45mixedink.xpd

Because the process went so well, I'm starting up two more letters,
supporting and opposing HR 1913, the hate crimes bill. Letter writing
will go on for three weeks, followed by a few more days of rating, and
then a petition sign-up period. More info here:

http://www.govtrack.us/blog/2009/05/02/collaborative-letter-update/

--
- Josh Tauberer
- GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)

Hurrah.

Josh

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:  [openhouseproject] FW: RELEASE: Senate to Expand Transparency
of Senate Votes
Date:  Tue, 5 May 2009 12:25:23 -0400
From:  Jones, Tom (Commerce) <Tom_Jones@...>
Reply-To:  openhouseproject@googlegroups.com
To:  'openhouseproject@googlegroups.com' <openhouseproject@googlegroups.com>



FYI





*Senate to Expand Transparency of Senate Votes*

/DeMint thanks Rules Committee for quick response/



*WASHINGTON, D.C.* – Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina),
chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, thanked Senators Chuck
Schumer (D-New York) and Bob Bennett (R-Utah), who lead the Senate Rules
Committee, for quickly responding to a bipartisan effort to modernize
the way the Senate publishes its roll call votes using the XML format.
The Rules Committee has instructed the Secretary of the Senate to make
this change.



“I want to thank Senators Schumer and Bennett for helping us increase
Senate transparency and accountability. Last week, a group of Senators
on both sides of the aisle sent them a letter asking them to publish
Senate votes in the XML format so the public can use computers to
search, sort, and visualize voting records in new ways. I’m pleased we
were able to quickly make this change, and I look forward to working
with my colleagues to make more improvements in the future,” said
Senator DeMint.



“This simple but important change will help give Americans real
transparency on their Senator’s voting record,” said Senator DeMint.



*An XML feed of votes for the first session of the 111^th Congress can
be found at this feed:
**http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_111_1.xml***

* *

*An XML feed of individual roll call votes will also be posted, such as
Vote # 177 found here:
**http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1111/vote_111_1_0017\
7.xml***



On Friday, Senator DeMint and a group of bipartisan senators wrote
<http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&Press\
Release_id=fd1027a7-d1ab-0d7e-ecfb-5fd5015f7cc1>

to the Rules Committee and asked for Senate votes to be made available
in XML format.



###



http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressR\
elease_id=116192bd-05d7-b5b0-ca14-917ca428f8fa&Month=5&Year=2009

<http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&Press\
Release_id=116192bd-05d7-b5b0-ca14-917ca428f8fa&Month=5&Year=2009>




--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Open House Project" group.
To post to this group, send email to openhouseproject@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
openhouseproject+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/openhouseproject?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

For me, the big thing is reliability. I've already been scraping the
data, but this will make sure that I can get it accurately.

- Josh Tauberer
- GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)

On 05/05/2009 12:58 PM, Peggy Garvin wrote:
>
>
> What sort of projects do folks have in mind to use the data once the
> feed of individual Senate roll call votes is posted?
>
> Peggy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Josh Tauberer <tauberer@...>
> *To:* govtrack@yahoogroups.com
> *Sent:* Tuesday, May 5, 2009 12:34:06 PM
> *Subject:* [govtrack] [Fwd: [openhouseproject] FW: RELEASE: Senate to
> Expand Transparency of Senate Votes]
>
> Hurrah.
>
> Josh
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [openhouseproject] FW: RELEASE: Senate to Expand Transparency
> of Senate Votes
> Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 12:25:23 -0400
> From: Jones, Tom (Commerce) <Tom_Jones@commerce. senate.gov
> <mailto:Tom_Jones%40commerce.senate.gov>>
> Reply-To: openhouseproject@ googlegroups. com
> <mailto:openhouseproject%40googlegroups.com>
> To: 'openhouseproject@ googlegroups. com
> <mailto:%27openhouseproject%40googlegroups.com>' <openhouseproject@
> googlegroups. com <mailto:openhouseproject%40googlegroups.com>>
>
> FYI
>
> *Senate to Expand Transparency of Senate Votes*
>
> /DeMint thanks Rules Committee for quick response/
>
> *WASHINGTON, D.C.* � Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina),
> chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, thanked Senators Chuck
> Schumer (D-New York) and Bob Bennett (R-Utah), who lead the Senate Rules
> Committee, for quickly responding to a bipartisan effort to modernize
> the way the Senate publishes its roll call votes using the XML format.
> The Rules Committee has instructed the Secretary of the Senate to make
> this change.
>
> �I want to thank Senators Schumer and Bennett for helping us increase
> Senate transparency and accountability. Last week, a group of Senators
> on both sides of the aisle sent them a letter asking them to publish
> Senate votes in the XML format so the public can use computers to
> search, sort, and visualize voting records in new ways. I�m pleased we
> were able to quickly make this change, and I look forward to working
> with my colleagues to make more improvements in the future,� said
> Senator DeMint.
>
> �This simple but important change will help give Americans real
> transparency on their Senator�s voting record,� said Senator DeMint.
>
> *An XML feed of votes for the first session of the 111^th Congress can
> be found at this feed:
> **http://www.senate. gov/legislative/ LIS/roll_ call_lists/ vote_menu_
> 111_1.xml* **
> <http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_111_1.xml***>
>
> * *
>
> *An XML feed of individual roll call votes will also be posted, such as
> Vote # 177 found here:
> **http://www.senate. gov/legislative/ LIS/roll_ call_votes/ vote1111/
> vote_111_ 1_00177.xml* **
>
<http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1111/vote_111_1_00177\
.xml***>
>
> On Friday, Senator DeMint and a group of bipartisan senators wrote
> <http://demint. senate.gov/ public/index. cfm?FuseAction= PressReleases.
> Detail&PressRele ase_id=fd1027a7- d1ab-0d7e- ecfb-5fd5015f7cc 1
>
<http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&Press\
Release_id=fd1027a7-d1ab-0d7e-ecfb-5fd5015f7cc1>>
>
>
> to the Rules Committee and asked for Senate votes to be made available
> in XML format.
>
> ###
>
> http://demint. senate.gov/ public/index. cfm?FuseAction= PressReleases.
> Detail&PressRele ase_id=116192bd- 05d7-b5b0- ca14-917ca428f8f a&Month=5&
> Year=2009
>
<http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&Press\
Release_id=116192bd-05d7-b5b0-ca14-917ca428f8fa&Month=5&Year=2009>
>
>
> <http://demint. senate.gov/ public/index. cfm?FuseAction= PressReleases.
> Detail&PressRele ase_id=116192bd- 05d7-b5b0- ca14-917ca428f8f a&Month=5&
> Year=2009
>
<http://demint.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&Press\
Release_id=116192bd-05d7-b5b0-ca14-917ca428f8fa&Month=5&Year=2009>>
>
> --~--~------ ---~--~-- --~------ ------~-- -----~--~ ----~
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Open House Project" group.
> To post to this group, send email to openhouseproject@ googlegroups. com
> <mailto:openhouseproject%40googlegroups.com>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> openhouseproject+ unsubscribe@ googlegroups. com
> <mailto:openhouseproject%2Bunsubscribe%40googlegroups.com>
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups. google.com/ group/openhousep roject?hl= en
> <http://groups.google.com/group/openhouseproject?hl=en>
> -~---------- ~----~--- -~----~-- ----~---- ~------~- -~---
>
>
>
>

Hello,

I noticed today that the ids and data for Rep. Donna Christensen (aka
Donna Christian-Green ?) appears to be inconsistent, and thought the
list might be interested in knowing about it.

Rep Christensen (US Virgin Islands Delegate) appears to have 2 govtrack
ids depending on which sessions and data files are looked at.   I'm
guessing this is because some of the data around the 109th session has
her listed as Donna Christian-Green where as other sessions appear to
show Donna M. Christensenan.  OpenCongress also suggests a 3rd name
which I luckily haven't found in the govtrack data: Donna M.
Christian-Christensen  or Donna Marie Christian-Christensen.  The story
appears to be that she briefly served as Rep. Donna Christian-Green
during the 105th congress.  (see:
http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Donna_Christensen   or
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000380   or
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Christensen ).   Curious why this
name change only impacted the 109th Congress' data though.


In any case, Should these 2 ids be merged?

Sessions 103-110:
govtrack_id: 400073
Name: Donna M.  Christensen

Session 109:
govtrack_id:  402518
Name: Donna Christian-Green

govtrack_id (402518) returns an error:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person_api.xpd?id=402518

And only appears in some of the data for the 109th congress, namely:
109/repstats/speeches.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' Speeches='0' WordsPerSpeech='0'
stat-z='-0.138280786448612' />
109/repstats/verbosity.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' Speeches='0' WordsPerSpeech='0'
stat-z='-0.18032984113136' />
109/repstats/topcontrib.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' TopContribution='' stat-z='' />


Regards,
Ilan

Egads, I hate when that happens.

Ok, thanks for pointing it out. I will unify the two ids as soon as I
get a chance.

- Josh Tauberer
- GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)

On 05/31/2009 06:23 PM, Ilan Rabinovitch wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I noticed today that the ids and data for Rep. Donna Christensen (aka
> Donna Christian-Green ?) appears to be inconsistent, and thought the
> list might be interested in knowing about it.
>
> Rep Christensen (US Virgin Islands Delegate) appears to have 2 govtrack
> ids depending on which sessions and data files are looked at.   I'm
> guessing this is because some of the data around the 109th session has
> her listed as Donna Christian-Green where as other sessions appear to
> show Donna M. Christensenan.  OpenCongress also suggests a 3rd name
> which I luckily haven't found in the govtrack data: Donna M.
> Christian-Christensen  or Donna Marie Christian-Christensen.  The story
> appears to be that she briefly served as Rep. Donna Christian-Green
> during the 105th congress.  (see:
> http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Donna_Christensen   or
> http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000380   or
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Christensen ).   Curious why this
> name change only impacted the 109th Congress' data though.
>
>
> In any case, Should these 2 ids be merged?
>
> Sessions 103-110:
> govtrack_id: 400073
> Name: Donna M.  Christensen
>
> Session 109:
> govtrack_id:  402518
> Name: Donna Christian-Green
>
> govtrack_id (402518) returns an error:
> http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person_api.xpd?id=402518
>
> And only appears in some of the data for the 109th congress, namely:
> 109/repstats/speeches.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' Speeches='0' WordsPerSpeech='0'
> stat-z='-0.138280786448612' />
> 109/repstats/verbosity.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' Speeches='0' WordsPerSpeech='0'
> stat-z='-0.18032984113136' />
> 109/repstats/topcontrib.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' TopContribution='' stat-z='' />
>
>
> Regards,
> Ilan
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Ah!

I've already fixed this problem at some point in the past, fortunately.
The ids appear in the repstats files because they were not updated
whenever I fixed the problem because I discontinued writing those files.
Hopefully no other files, and especially no primary data files, have the
mistaken ID.

My solution is to delete those repstats files. Those statistics are no
longer supported.

- Josh Tauberer
- GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)

On 05/31/2009 06:23 PM, Ilan Rabinovitch wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I noticed today that the ids and data for Rep. Donna Christensen (aka
> Donna Christian-Green ?) appears to be inconsistent, and thought the
> list might be interested in knowing about it.
>
> Rep Christensen (US Virgin Islands Delegate) appears to have 2 govtrack
> ids depending on which sessions and data files are looked at.   I'm
> guessing this is because some of the data around the 109th session has
> her listed as Donna Christian-Green where as other sessions appear to
> show Donna M. Christensenan.  OpenCongress also suggests a 3rd name
> which I luckily haven't found in the govtrack data: Donna M.
> Christian-Christensen  or Donna Marie Christian-Christensen.  The story
> appears to be that she briefly served as Rep. Donna Christian-Green
> during the 105th congress.  (see:
> http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Donna_Christensen   or
> http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000380   or
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Christensen ).   Curious why this
> name change only impacted the 109th Congress' data though.
>
>
> In any case, Should these 2 ids be merged?
>
> Sessions 103-110:
> govtrack_id: 400073
> Name: Donna M.  Christensen
>
> Session 109:
> govtrack_id:  402518
> Name: Donna Christian-Green
>
> govtrack_id (402518) returns an error:
> http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person_api.xpd?id=402518
>
> And only appears in some of the data for the 109th congress, namely:
> 109/repstats/speeches.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' Speeches='0' WordsPerSpeech='0'
> stat-z='-0.138280786448612' />
> 109/repstats/verbosity.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' Speeches='0' WordsPerSpeech='0'
> stat-z='-0.18032984113136' />
> 109/repstats/topcontrib.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' TopContribution='' stat-z='' />
>
>
> Regards,
> Ilan
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Since I put some funding into this, I hope some people will help out...

- Josh Tauberer
- GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [open-gov] RFP: Enhanced Code of Federal Regulations
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 12:18:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Carl Malamud <carl+google@...>
Reply-To: open-government@googlegroups.com
To: Open Government <open-government@googlegroups.com>


Enhanced Code of Federal Regulations
Request for Paper, Public.Resource.Org, RFP CFR-06012009

This RFP is a call for assistance from librarians and other civic-
minded individuals.  In 2008, Public.Resource.Org, with the assistance
of a variety of parties including the Sunlight Foundation,
GovTrack.US, Stanford University, and Google, purchased a bulk feed of
the Code of Federal Regulations, a product sold by the Government
Printing Office.[1]  This RFP details the second stage of this
program.

Many readers are familiar with past efforts of Public.Resource.Org to
make available major public safety codes from the 50 states.[2] Our
authorization for posting these documents for public distribution is
contained in the Veeck decision, which held that any technical
standards duly Incorporated by Reference into law must be broadly
available for all to use, as all our laws must.[3]   This same
mechanism, Incorporation by Reference, is also used extensively at the
Federal Level, particularly in the Code of Federal Regulations where
thousands of such technical standards are made legally binding as part
of executive branch regulations.[4]

Public.Resource.Org has received a grant from Sunlight Foundation to
create an Enhanced Code of Federal Regulations, which will Incorporate
by Inclusion all standards that have been Incorporated by Reference.
In addition to support from the Sunlight Foundation,
Public.Resource.Org gratefully acknowledges the prior assistance of
the Omidyar Network which previously funded our work in 2007 and 2008,
and which has also provided substantial support to the Sunlight
Foundation enabling them to fund work such as the present RFP.

In order to incorporate a standard by inclusion, we must match the
exact version of the standard with the language in the Code of Federal
Regulations.  For example, if the CFR incorporates the 2000 version of
ANSI Z21.1�2000, Household Cooking Gas Appliances, we can only
incorporate that specific version and not subsequent or prior
editions.

There are two sources, in addition to the Code of Federal Regulations
itself, for determining if a technical standard has been
incorporated.  First, the government runs a database at NIST that
includes this material.[5] Second, Public.Resource.Org did a manual
scan of the CFR and pulled out as many references to technical
standards as we could find.[6]

In this RFP, we are asking for assistance from the Library Community
and other individuals to provide us with copies of any such standards
they might have.  We are particularly interested in documents from the
American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the American Society for
Testing and Materials (ASTM), the American Boat and Yachting Club
(ABYC), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the American
Petroleum Institute (API), the Electrical Industries Association
(EIA), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the Society of Automotive
Engineres (SAE), and Underwriters Laboratories.

Many of these standards cost hundreds of dollars apiece, and very few
public libraries in the U.S. appear to have copies of any of these.
Your assistance in making these vital technical standards more widely
available would be greatly appreciated.  One of the few libraries with
an extensive collection of these technical standards is the Illinois
State Library in Springfield, Illinois. We are looking for a student
who would be interested in doing some scanning in that library for a
few days.  In addition, you can use a tool such as WorldCat.Org to try
and find specific standards at a library near you.

Those interested in contributing materials may contact me from our
"about" page.[7]

Best regards,

Carl Malamud
Public.Resource.Org

Resources:

[1] Public.Resource.Org, Letter to the Public Printer, 06/17/2008
      http://public.resource.org/gpo.gov

[2] Public.Resource.Org, Welcome to Code City, 09/01/2008
      http://bulk.resource.org/codes.gov/

[3] Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress, 293 F.3d 791, June 7,
2002.
      http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/293/293.F3d.791.99-40632.html

[4] National Archives, Incorporation By Reference
      http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/cfr/ibr-locations.html

[5] National Institutes of Standards and Technology, SIBR Database
      http://standards.gov/sibr/query/index.cfm

[6] Public.Resource.Org, Partial List of Standards Incorporated
      http://public.resource.org/ecfr.nara.gov/shopping.list.html

[7] Public.Resource.Org, Contact Page
      http://public.resource.org/about/
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Open Government" group.
To post to this group, send email to open-government@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
open-government+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/open-government?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Ah good to know.  I didn't realize repstats was no longer being updated.
   I will update my processes accordingly.  Is there a new equivalent to
repstats/people.xml ?


Thanks,
Ilan


On 6/2/09 4:28 AM, Josh Tauberer wrote:
> Ah!
>
> I've already fixed this problem at some point in the past, fortunately.
> The ids appear in the repstats files because they were not updated
> whenever I fixed the problem because I discontinued writing those files.
> Hopefully no other files, and especially no primary data files, have the
> mistaken ID.
>
> My solution is to delete those repstats files. Those statistics are no
> longer supported.
>
> - Josh Tauberer
> - GovTrack.us
>
> http://razor.occams.info
>
> "Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
> falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
> Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)
>
> On 05/31/2009 06:23 PM, Ilan Rabinovitch wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I noticed today that the ids and data for Rep. Donna Christensen (aka
>> Donna Christian-Green ?) appears to be inconsistent, and thought the
>> list might be interested in knowing about it.
>>
>> Rep Christensen (US Virgin Islands Delegate) appears to have 2 govtrack
>> ids depending on which sessions and data files are looked at.   I'm
>> guessing this is because some of the data around the 109th session has
>> her listed as Donna Christian-Green where as other sessions appear to
>> show Donna M. Christensenan.  OpenCongress also suggests a 3rd name
>> which I luckily haven't found in the govtrack data: Donna M.
>> Christian-Christensen  or Donna Marie Christian-Christensen.  The story
>> appears to be that she briefly served as Rep. Donna Christian-Green
>> during the 105th congress.  (see:
>> http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Donna_Christensen   or
>> http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000380   or
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Christensen ).   Curious why this
>> name change only impacted the 109th Congress' data though.
>>
>>
>> In any case, Should these 2 ids be merged?
>>
>> Sessions 103-110:
>> govtrack_id: 400073
>> Name: Donna M.  Christensen
>>
>> Session 109:
>> govtrack_id:  402518
>> Name: Donna Christian-Green
>>
>> govtrack_id (402518) returns an error:
>> http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person_api.xpd?id=402518
>>
>> And only appears in some of the data for the 109th congress, namely:
>> 109/repstats/speeches.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
>> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' Speeches='0' WordsPerSpeech='0'
>> stat-z='-0.138280786448612' />
>> 109/repstats/verbosity.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
>> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' Speeches='0' WordsPerSpeech='0'
>> stat-z='-0.18032984113136' />
>> 109/repstats/topcontrib.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
>> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' TopContribution='' stat-z='' />
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>> Ilan
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Interesting points. You'd have to talk to Carl about it though.

- Josh Tauberer
- GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)

On 06/02/2009 09:18 PM, Harvey S. Frey wrote:
>
>
> Josh:
>  >However, legal record copies of material incorporated by reference are
> also filed at the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) and other NARA
> facilities. *OFR does not distribute IBR materials.<*
> **
> Is there a legislator interested in carrying a bill which would require
> OFR to place all IBR materials online? That would satisfy the
> requirement that the FR isn't overloaded with technical material, yet
> provide public access.
> In any case, instead of looking everywhere for copies, why not get the
> ones which OFR is required to have on file? Even if OFR doesn't
> "distribute" them, they surely must be required to allow access to them
> for copying. If they don't, That ought to be the basis for another
> Veeck-like suit.
> Harvey
> =====================
> Harvey S. Frey MD PhD Esq.
> hsfrey@... <mailto:hsfrey@...> www.harp.org <http://www.harp.org>
> ======================
> Contentment makes poor men rich;
> discontent makes rich men poor.
> - Benjamin Franklin
> =======================
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Josh Tauberer <mailto:tauberer@...>
> *To:* GovTrack List <mailto:govtrack@yahoogroups.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:18 PM
> *Subject:* [govtrack] [Fwd: [open-gov] RFP: Enhanced Code of Federal
> Regulations]
>
> Since I put some funding into this, I hope some people will help out...
>
> - Josh Tauberer
> - GovTrack.us
>
> http://razor.occams.info
>
> "Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation! Yields
> falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
> Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [open-gov] RFP: Enhanced Code of Federal Regulations
> Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 12:18:43 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Carl Malamud <carl+google@...
> <mailto:carl+google@...>>
> Reply-To: open-government@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:open-government@googlegroups.com>
> To: Open Government <open-government@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:open-government@googlegroups.com>>
>
>
> Enhanced Code of Federal Regulations
> Request for Paper, Public.Resource.Org, RFP CFR-06012009
>
> This RFP is a call for assistance from librarians and other civic-
> minded individuals. In 2008, Public.Resource.Org, with the assistance
> of a variety of parties including the Sunlight Foundation,
> GovTrack.US, Stanford University, and Google, purchased a bulk feed of
> the Code of Federal Regulations, a product sold by the Government
> Printing Office.[1] This RFP details the second stage of this
> program.
>
> Many readers are familiar with past efforts of Public.Resource.Org to
> make available major public safety codes from the 50 states.[2] Our
> authorization for posting these documents for public distribution is
> contained in the Veeck decision, which held that any technical
> standards duly Incorporated by Reference into law must be broadly
> available for all to use, as all our laws must.[3] This same
> mechanism, Incorporation by Reference, is also used extensively at the
> Federal Level, particularly in the Code of Federal Regulations where
> thousands of such technical standards are made legally binding as part
> of executive branch regulations.[4]
>
> Public.Resource.Org has received a grant from Sunlight Foundation to
> create an Enhanced Code of Federal Regulations, which will Incorporate
> by Inclusion all standards that have been Incorporated by Reference.
> In addition to support from the Sunlight Foundation,
> Public.Resource.Org gratefully acknowledges the prior assistance of
> the Omidyar Network which previously funded our work in 2007 and 2008,
> and which has also provided substantial support to the Sunlight
> Foundation enabling them to fund work such as the present RFP.
>
> In order to incorporate a standard by inclusion, we must match the
> exact version of the standard with the language in the Code of Federal
> Regulations. For example, if the CFR incorporates the 2000 version of
> ANSI Z21.1�2000, Household Cooking Gas Appliances, we can only
> incorporate that specific version and not subsequent or prior
> editions.
>
> There are two sources, in addition to the Code of Federal Regulations
> itself, for determining if a technical standard has been
> incorporated. First, the government runs a database at NIST that
> includes this material.[5] Second, Public.Resource.Org did a manual
> scan of the CFR and pulled out as many references to technical
> standards as we could find.[6]
>
> In this RFP, we are asking for assistance from the Library Community
> and other individuals to provide us with copies of any such standards
> they might have. We are particularly interested in documents from the
> American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the American Society for
> Testing and Materials (ASTM), the American Boat and Yachting Club
> (ABYC), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the American
> Petroleum Institute (API), the Electrical Industries Association
> (EIA), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the
> National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), the Society of Automotive
> Engineres (SAE), and Underwriters Laboratories.
>
> Many of these standards cost hundreds of dollars apiece, and very few
> public libraries in the U.S. appear to have copies of any of these.
> Your assistance in making these vital technical standards more widely
> available would be greatly appreciated. One of the few libraries with
> an extensive collection of these technical standards is the Illinois
> State Library in Springfield, Illinois. We are looking for a student
> who would be interested in doing some scanning in that library for a
> few days. In addition, you can use a tool such as WorldCat.Org to try
> and find specific standards at a library near you.
>
> Those interested in contributing materials may contact me from our
> "about" page.[7]
>
> Best regards,
>
> Carl Malamud
> Public.Resource.Org
>
> Resources:
>
> [1] Public.Resource.Org, Letter to the Public Printer, 06/17/2008
> http://public.resource.org/gpo.gov
>
> [2] Public.Resource.Org, Welcome to Code City, 09/01/2008
> http://bulk.resource.org/codes.gov/
>
> [3] Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress, 293 F.3d 791, June 7,
> 2002.
> http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/293/293.F3d.791.99-40632.html
>
> [4] National Archives, Incorporation By Reference
> http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/cfr/ibr-locations.html
>
> [5] National Institutes of Standards and Technology, SIBR Database
> http://standards.gov/sibr/query/index.cfm
>
> [6] Public.Resource.Org, Partial List of Standards Incorporated
> http://public.resource.org/ecfr.nara.gov/shopping.list.html
>
> [7] Public.Resource.Org, Contact Page
> http://public.resource.org/about/
> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Open Government" group.
> To post to this group, send email to open-government@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:open-government@googlegroups.com>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> open-government+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:open-government+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com>
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/open-government?hl=en
> -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

No, just the two deleted files are not updated.

Only the 111/repstats directory is an updated repstats directory. They
are 'archival' after each two year session. The current people.xml is
111/repstats/people.xml.

- Josh Tauberer
- GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)

On 06/03/2009 04:39 PM, Ilan Rabinovitch wrote:
> Ah good to know.  I didn't realize repstats was no longer being updated.
>    I will update my processes accordingly.  Is there a new equivalent to
> repstats/people.xml ?
>
>
> Thanks,
> Ilan
>
>
> On 6/2/09 4:28 AM, Josh Tauberer wrote:
>> Ah!
>>
>> I've already fixed this problem at some point in the past, fortunately.
>> The ids appear in the repstats files because they were not updated
>> whenever I fixed the problem because I discontinued writing those files.
>> Hopefully no other files, and especially no primary data files, have the
>> mistaken ID.
>>
>> My solution is to delete those repstats files. Those statistics are no
>> longer supported.
>>
>> - Josh Tauberer
>> - GovTrack.us
>>
>> http://razor.occams.info
>>
>> "Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
>> falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
>> Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)
>>
>> On 05/31/2009 06:23 PM, Ilan Rabinovitch wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I noticed today that the ids and data for Rep. Donna Christensen (aka
>>> Donna Christian-Green ?) appears to be inconsistent, and thought the
>>> list might be interested in knowing about it.
>>>
>>> Rep Christensen (US Virgin Islands Delegate) appears to have 2 govtrack
>>> ids depending on which sessions and data files are looked at.   I'm
>>> guessing this is because some of the data around the 109th session has
>>> her listed as Donna Christian-Green where as other sessions appear to
>>> show Donna M. Christensenan.  OpenCongress also suggests a 3rd name
>>> which I luckily haven't found in the govtrack data: Donna M.
>>> Christian-Christensen  or Donna Marie Christian-Christensen.  The story
>>> appears to be that she briefly served as Rep. Donna Christian-Green
>>> during the 105th congress.  (see:
>>> http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Donna_Christensen   or
>>> http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000380   or
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Christensen ).   Curious why this
>>> name change only impacted the 109th Congress' data though.
>>>
>>>
>>> In any case, Should these 2 ids be merged?
>>>
>>> Sessions 103-110:
>>> govtrack_id: 400073
>>> Name: Donna M.  Christensen
>>>
>>> Session 109:
>>> govtrack_id:  402518
>>> Name: Donna Christian-Green
>>>
>>> govtrack_id (402518) returns an error:
>>> http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person_api.xpd?id=402518
>>>
>>> And only appears in some of the data for the 109th congress, namely:
>>> 109/repstats/speeches.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
>>> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' Speeches='0' WordsPerSpeech='0'
>>> stat-z='-0.138280786448612' />
>>> 109/repstats/verbosity.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
>>> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' Speeches='0' WordsPerSpeech='0'
>>> stat-z='-0.18032984113136' />
>>> 109/repstats/topcontrib.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
>>> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' TopContribution='' stat-z='' />
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Ilan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Thank you for the clarification, and the updates.

On 6/5/09 7:19 AM, Josh Tauberer wrote:
> No, just the two deleted files are not updated.
>
> Only the 111/repstats directory is an updated repstats directory. They
> are 'archival' after each two year session. The current people.xml is
> 111/repstats/people.xml.
>
> - Josh Tauberer
> - GovTrack.us
>
> http://razor.occams.info
>
> "Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
> falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
> Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)
>
> On 06/03/2009 04:39 PM, Ilan Rabinovitch wrote:
>
>> Ah good to know.  I didn't realize repstats was no longer being updated.
>>     I will update my processes accordingly.  Is there a new equivalent to
>> repstats/people.xml ?
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Ilan
>>
>>
>> On 6/2/09 4:28 AM, Josh Tauberer wrote:
>>
>>> Ah!
>>>
>>> I've already fixed this problem at some point in the past, fortunately.
>>> The ids appear in the repstats files because they were not updated
>>> whenever I fixed the problem because I discontinued writing those files.
>>> Hopefully no other files, and especially no primary data files, have the
>>> mistaken ID.
>>>
>>> My solution is to delete those repstats files. Those statistics are no
>>> longer supported.
>>>
>>> - Josh Tauberer
>>> - GovTrack.us
>>>
>>> http://razor.occams.info
>>>
>>> "Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
>>> falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
>>> Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)
>>>
>>> On 05/31/2009 06:23 PM, Ilan Rabinovitch wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> I noticed today that the ids and data for Rep. Donna Christensen (aka
>>>> Donna Christian-Green ?) appears to be inconsistent, and thought the
>>>> list might be interested in knowing about it.
>>>>
>>>> Rep Christensen (US Virgin Islands Delegate) appears to have 2 govtrack
>>>> ids depending on which sessions and data files are looked at.   I'm
>>>> guessing this is because some of the data around the 109th session has
>>>> her listed as Donna Christian-Green where as other sessions appear to
>>>> show Donna M. Christensenan.  OpenCongress also suggests a 3rd name
>>>> which I luckily haven't found in the govtrack data: Donna M.
>>>> Christian-Christensen  or Donna Marie Christian-Christensen.  The story
>>>> appears to be that she briefly served as Rep. Donna Christian-Green
>>>> during the 105th congress.  (see:
>>>> http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Donna_Christensen   or
>>>> http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000380   or
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Christensen ).   Curious why this
>>>> name change only impacted the 109th Congress' data though.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In any case, Should these 2 ids be merged?
>>>>
>>>> Sessions 103-110:
>>>> govtrack_id: 400073
>>>> Name: Donna M.  Christensen
>>>>
>>>> Session 109:
>>>> govtrack_id:  402518
>>>> Name: Donna Christian-Green
>>>>
>>>> govtrack_id (402518) returns an error:
>>>> http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person_api.xpd?id=402518
>>>>
>>>> And only appears in some of the data for the 109th congress, namely:
>>>> 109/repstats/speeches.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
>>>> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' Speeches='0' WordsPerSpeech='0'
>>>> stat-z='-0.138280786448612' />
>>>> 109/repstats/verbosity.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
>>>> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' Speeches='0' WordsPerSpeech='0'
>>>> stat-z='-0.18032984113136' />
>>>> 109/repstats/topcontrib.xml:<representative id='402518' Name='Rep. Donna
>>>> Christian-Green [D, VI-0]' Current='1' TopContribution='' stat-z='' />
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Ilan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> ------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Hi,

I recently created a Facebook application that relies on the GovTrack API.  It
allows people to search for bills, vote on them, post them to their walls, and
see what their friends have voted on.

The application is called Laws i Like and can be accessed at:
http://lawsilike.appspot.com/

It is hosted on Google App Engine and uses the Google Datastore for saving user
data.

I've only been working on it for two days and it's my first Facebook App, so
bugs are still very likely.  If you try it out and something goes wrong send me
an email.  Also, let me know if you have suggestions for improvements.

- Chris

Hey, Chris. Thanks for posting an announcement here.

The app is very well done, esp for two days of work.

I've added a link on GovTrack along with a link to the other Facebook
app that uses GovTrack data, RepresentedBy, to a revised Tools page:

http://www.govtrack.us/tools.xpd

- Josh Tauberer
- GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)

On 06/12/2009 11:48 PM, chrispoliquin@... wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I recently created a Facebook application that relies on the GovTrack API.  It
allows people to search for bills, vote on them, post them to their walls, and
see what their friends have voted on.
>
> The application is called Laws i Like and can be accessed at:
> http://lawsilike.appspot.com/
>
> It is hosted on Google App Engine and uses the Google Datastore for saving
user data.
>
> I've only been working on it for two days and it's my first Facebook App, so
bugs are still very likely.  If you try it out and something goes wrong send me
an email.  Also, let me know if you have suggestions for improvements.
>
> - Chris
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Hello,

Will anyone from the list be attending Transparency Camp this weekend in
Mountain View?

Regards,
Ilan

Harvey,

   This format works for me for linking to bills on Thomas

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR861:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s309:

So the d is followed by the session of congress and the bill number is between
the colons.

-Gabe

--- In govtrack@yahoogroups.com, "Harvey S. Frey" <hsfrey@...> wrote:
>
> Josh et al:
>
>     Is there someplace that HTML version of house bills (eg: HR3200) are
available with fixed URLs?
>
>     I'd like to massage the main table of contents to make it a bit easier to
use, but the search type URLs at Thomas expire after a few minutes, and require
you to go back to Thomas to refresh the search, so I can't link to them directly
from my improved TOC page.
>
>     I tried to see what Thomas' "XML display" was like, but all that did was
blow my browser.
>
>     The extant text and PDF versions are obviously not at all user friendly,
and I'd like to avoid having to convert them to HTML, if there's an alternative.
>
>  Harvey
> =====================
> Harvey S. Frey MD PhD Esq.
> hsfrey@...   www.harp.org
> ======================
> I don't want insurance - I want Health Care!
> ======================
>

 

Harvey,

This format works for me for linking to bills on Thomas

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR861:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s309:

So the d is followed by the session of congress and the bill number is between the colons.

-Gabe

--- In govtrack@yahoogroups.com, "Harvey S. Frey" <hsfrey@...> wrote:
>
> Josh et al:
>
> Is there someplace that HTML version of house bills (eg: HR3200) are available with fixed URLs?
>
> I'd like to massage the main table of contents to make it a bit easier to use, but the search type URLs at Thomas expire after a few minutes, and require you to go back to Thomas to refresh the search, so I can't link to them directly from my improved TOC page.
>
> I tried to see what Thomas' "XML display" was like, but all that did was blow my browser.
>
> The extant text and PDF versions are obviously not at all user friendly, and I'd like to avoid having to convert them to HTML, if there's an alternative.
>
> Harvey
> =====================
> Harvey S. Frey MD PhD Esq.
> hsfrey@... www.harp.org
> ======================
> I don't want insurance - I want Health Care!
> ======================
>

Hey, Harvey.

> Is there someplace that HTML version of house bills (eg: HR3200) are
> available with fixed URLs?

  From the government or from GovTrack? From the government, not as far
as I've seen.

See govtrack's developer section and the "data" directory for my copy of
the HTML found on THOMAS.

J

I'll be there. Looking forward to meeting you and anyone else. :)

- Josh Tauberer
- GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation!  Yields
falsehood when preceded by its quotation!" Achilles to
Tortoise (in "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter)

On 08/06/2009 05:08 PM, Ilan Rabinovitch wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Will anyone from the list be attending Transparency Camp this weekend in
> Mountain View?
>
> Regards,
> Ilan
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Hey, Harvey.

Is there someplace that HTML version of house bills (eg: HR3200) are
available with fixed URLs?

From the government or from GovTrack? From the government, not as far as I've seen.
See govtrack's developer section and the "data" directory for my copy of the HTML found on THOMAS.
J
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