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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Thomas created a new system for permanent bill "handlers" earlier this year:

an example:

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.uscongress/legislation.110s254

Details at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/handles/help.html


On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 4:21 PM, Jeff Fischer<JeffreyMFischer@...> wrote:
>
>
> Harvey/anyone,
>
>    If you acquired the answer to this question, I'd appreciate the
> knowledge sharing.
>
> Thanks,
> Jeff
>
>
> ________________________________
> To: govtrack@yahoogroups.com
> From: hsfrey@...
> Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 18:31:15 -0700
> Subject: [govtrack] Fixed URLs for House Bills
>
>
> 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!
> ======================
>
>
>



--
--
Derek Willis
dwillis@...

The biggest downside for XML is that not all bills are drafted in XML,
and some of the most important bills have been among the ones drafted in
their legacy system (the raw files for which are held hostage for
$17,000). Congress has made good progress getting to XML, but it's not 100%.

- 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 08/07/2009 02:32 PM, Harvey S. Frey wrote:
>
>
> Thanks Gabe:
>
> Yes, that works to always get to the Main page for the bill, which will
> always have valid current links to the actual text sections, but THOSE
> links expire in a few minutes, wherever you link to them from, and you
> have to re-link to them.
>
> Of course, you can download the entire massive XML file (the link is
> clear on the right),
> but it's big and slow, and if you try to massage it, really messy. The
> internal IDs are non-mnemonic 32 character hex codes, though all that
> means is a lot more work to deal with it. Every line in the bill takes
> 4-5 lines in the XML file. Ugh!
>
> Harvey
>
> potluckgabe wrote:
>>
>> 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:HR861:>
>> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s309:
>> <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 <mailto:govtrack%40yahoogroups.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!
>> > ======================
>> >
>>
>
>
>

 

Thomas created a new system for permanent bill "handlers" earlier this year:

an example:

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.uscongress/legislation.110s254

Details at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/handles/help.html

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 4:21 PM, Jeff Fischer<JeffreyMFischer@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Harvey/anyone,
>
>    If you acquired the answer to this question, I'd appreciate the
> knowledge sharing.
>
> Thanks,
> Jeff
>
>
> ________________________________
> To: govtrack@yahoogroups.com
> From: hsfrey@harp.org
> Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 18:31:15 -0700
> Subject: [govtrack] Fixed URLs for House Bills
>
>
> 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@harp.org   www.harp.org
> ======================
> I don't want insurance - I want Health Care!
> ======================
>
>
>

--
--
Derek Willis
dwillis@gmail.com

-- =============================
Harvey S. Frey MD PhD Esq.
hsfrey@... www.harp.org
=============================

http://www.govtrack.us/data/us/bills.text/111/h/h3200.html (latest version)

You'll have to browse this list to see what particular versions are also
available:
http://www.govtrack.us/data/us/bills.text/111/h/


- 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 08/07/2009 05:57 PM, Harvey S. Frey wrote:
>
>
> Hi Josh:
>
> I found a reference to HR3200 on your data.xpd page, but I was unable to
> find links to the actual text. If you mirror the Thomas site and have
> non-expiring links to the text of bills, that would be wonderful! (I
> typed "h.r. 3200" into the Bill Search form, and got an internal error
> message.)
>
> If not, maybe someone could suggest a good program which will download
> all the links of a given site. I did that once (manually) with the
> PATRIOT Act (adding hyperlinks to all the obscure citations), and just
> hosted it off my own site.
>
> Harvey
>
>
> Josh Tauberer wrote:
>> 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
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

 

http://www.govtrack.us/data/us/bills.text/111/h/h3200.html (latest version)

You'll have to browse this list to see what particular versions are also
available:
http://www.govtrack.us/data/us/bills.text/111/h/

- 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 08/07/2009 05:57 PM, Harvey S. Frey wrote:
>
>
> Hi Josh:
>
> I found a reference to HR3200 on your data.xpd page, but I was unable to
> find links to the actual text. If you mirror the Thomas site and have
> non-expiring links to the text of bills, that would be wonderful! (I
> typed "h.r. 3200" into the Bill Search form, and got an internal error
> message.)
>
> If not, maybe someone could suggest a good program which will download
> all the links of a given site. I did that once (manually) with the
> PATRIOT Act (adding hyperlinks to all the obscure citations), and just
> hosted it off my own site.
>
> Harvey
>
>
> Josh Tauberer wrote:
>> 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
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

-- =============================
Harvey S. Frey MD PhD Esq.
hsfrey@... www.harp.org
=============================

Well if you come up with a new tool I'd be happy to host it.

Have you see the bill text view on GovTrack since January-ish? It has
some new permalinking ability.

- 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 08/07/2009 07:27 PM, Harvey S. Frey wrote:
>      In order to satisfy my desire to have links direct to specific
> sections, I'd still have to write a perl program to try to add
> hyperlinks, and then host it myself.

I had planned to attend, but some personal matters have delayed my
drive up to the point where it likely doesn't make sense to attend.  I
might still drive up Saturday afternoon, but its not likely.

Best of luck with the govtrack demo sessions.


On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Josh Tauberer<tauberer@...> wrote:
> 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
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>

Hi, all.

I'm upgrading GovTrack's hardware soon. In the next few days the site
will go down... and then some time later will come back up.

Since Congress is on recess hopefully this wont be disruptive at all.

--
- 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)

Hi, all.

GovTrack is on a new server that ought to be about 4 times more powerful
than the last one. Dual quad core and tons of RAM.

If you run into any weirdness, let me know.

--
- 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)

Hi all. I've just changed the format of people.xml. It's been bugging me
for a few years.

The old people.xml in data/us/SESSION/repstats continues to exist but
will not be updated. I will delete it eventually to make sure everyone
updates to the new file(s).

There are two new people.xml files:

data/us/people.xml
------------------
Same as the old one, except without current-committee-assignment
elements. It is a database of everyone that has ever served in Congress,
plus since a few months ago it now also has all of the U.S. presidents
(<role type='prez' .../>).

data/us/SESSION/people.xml
--------------------------
Like the old one, but including only people who have a term as a
representative/delegate/etc. or senator in that Congress (no
presidents). People that go from rep to sen in a session will have two
roles in the file.

Both files now mark the current role as "current='1'".

--
- 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)

FYI, I've formed a company called Civic Impulse (civicimpulse.com) and
GovTrack is (hereby) now a project of that company.

--
- 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)

Congrats Josh!
and good luck!

greets from Argentina,

Marcos.

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 12:00 PM, Josh Tauberer <tauberer@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> FYI, I've formed a company called Civic Impulse (civicimpulse.com) and
> GovTrack is (hereby) now a project of that company.
>
> --
> - 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)
>
>

Thanks, Marcos and Frank!

- Josh Tauberer
- CivicImpulse

http://razor.occams.info
http://www.civicimpulse.com

"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 09/16/2009 11:28 AM, Frank Stovicek wrote:
>
>
> That’s awesome! Congrats on moving your endeavors forward, Josh.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* govtrack@yahoogroups.com [mailto:govtrack@yahoogroups.com] *On
> Behalf Of *Josh Tauberer
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 16, 2009 11:00 AM
> *To:* GovTrack List
> *Subject:* [govtrack] GovTrack is now a project of Civic Impulse, LLC
>
> FYI, I've formed a company called Civic Impulse (civicimpulse.com) and
> GovTrack is (hereby) now a project of that company.
>
> --
> - Josh Tauberer
> - GovTrack.us
>
> http://razor.occams.info <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)
>
>
>
>

Hi all,

I am working on a research project and am looking for a coder to assist.

I have a CSV file with individual address records that also contain latitude &
longitude data for each record. I would like to be able to update the file to
include Congressional Districts for each record. I am aware of this
database/software:

http://www.mobilecommons.com/developers/legislative-lookup/

Which looks like it would be of great help. I think a script which would process
the whole CSV file and then spit back a new CSV file with CDs would probably be
the ideal solution. As mentioned above, this is a research project. I am not
doing this for any commercial purpose or to send junk mail to anyone.

If you are interested in working with me on this, please let me know! Thanks,

David

Hello,

I'm reading the bill XML file wiki at
http://wiki.govtrack.us/index.php?title=Bill_XML and I have two questions:

1. When a <status> element's child node is <vote> it has a "where" attribute. In
this case, isn't the "where" attribute always going to be the same value as the
"type" attribute of the root <bill> node?

2. When the <status> element's child node is <vote2>, won't the "result"
attribute value always be "fail"? I'm thinking <vote2 result='pass'> would
always be a <topresident> element instead, since the bill passed through
congress.

Thanks!

On 11/17/2009 10:33 PM, Jesus Christ wrote:
> 1. When a<status>  element's child node is<vote>  it has a "where"
> attribute. In this case, isn't the "where" attribute always going to
> be the same value as the "type" attribute of the root<bill>  node?

It'll be the same as the first character of the type attribute. Don't
forget resolutions ("hr", "hc", "hj").

> 2. When the<status>  element's child node is<vote2>, won't the
> "result" attribute value always be "fail"? I'm thinking<vote2
> result='pass'>  would always be a<topresident>  element instead,
> since the bill passed through congress.

For bills, there is a delay. It may go to conference committee before
the next step. Generally it should eventually make it to "topresident"
thought. But "vote2" will also occur for joint and concurrent
resolutions which (normally) don't go on to the president.

FYI for everyone, there is a new experimental "state" node at the top
there that is going to eventually replace "status". "state" is more
precise. There are some bugs that need to be fixed with it still,
though. I just added some preliminary docs here:
http://wiki.govtrack.us/index.php?title=Bill_XML

- Josh Tauberer
- CivicImpulse / GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info | www.govtrack.us | civicimpulse.com

"Members of both sides are reminded not to use guests of the
House as props."

Are there any plans for adding a state code that signifies debate has ended and
a call for a vote has been made? There seems to be a gap between state codes
REPORTED and PASS_OVER.

--- In govtrack@yahoogroups.com, Josh Tauberer <tauberer@...> wrote:
> FYI for everyone, there is a new experimental "state" node at the top
> there that is going to eventually replace "status". "state" is more
> precise. There are some bugs that need to be fixed with it still,
> though. I just added some preliminary docs here:
> http://wiki.govtrack.us/index.php?title=Bill_XML

In my experience, if a bill moves past being reported it moves very fast
to being voted on.

Here are some statistics for the current congress. Out of the 338 bills
that were reported out of committee and then were subsequently voted on
and for which my data files have the information easily encoded, 29 (8%)
had no intervening action and 276 (81%) had no action after being
reported until 24 hours before the vote. That leaves around 10%, which
is still a fair number. In those cases the actions are still within two
days of the vote.

Because of the time delay of information getting onto THOMAS, and then
into GovTrack, a two-day delay is just barely enough time for it to
matter. But, it could matter, so I'll put this on my to-do list.

- Josh Tauberer
- CivicImpulse / GovTrack.us

http://razor.occams.info | www.govtrack.us | civicimpulse.com

"Members of both sides are reminded not to use guests of the
House as props."

On 11/21/2009 01:34 PM, Jesus Christ wrote:
> Are there any plans for adding a state code that signifies debate has ended
and a call for a vote has been made? There seems to be a gap between state codes
REPORTED and PASS_OVER.
>
> --- In govtrack@yahoogroups.com, Josh Tauberer<tauberer@...>  wrote:
>> FYI for everyone, there is a new experimental "state" node at the top
>> there that is going to eventually replace "status". "state" is more
>> precise. There are some bugs that need to be fixed with it still,
>> though. I just added some preliminary docs here:
>> http://wiki.govtrack.us/index.php?title=Bill_XML
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>