CongressDB Blogtag:www.congressdb.com,2007-10-07:/blog/42008-01-19T02:18:47ZA blog about the site CongressDB.comMovable Type Publishing Platform 4.01Hello 2008tag:www.congressdb.com,2008:/blog//4.8112008-01-19T02:17:31Z2008-01-19T02:18:47ZRottenchesterhttp://fighting29th.comNew Feature: All Votes on One Billtag:www.congressdb.com,2007:/blog//4.7922007-12-29T23:36:02Z2007-12-29T23:44:07ZIn order to better track the progress of a bill, as well as your representative's votes on that bill, I've added a link to all votes on a given bill from the roll page.For example, all the votes on the...Rottenchesterhttp://fighting29th.com For example, all the votes on the Department of State and Foreign Appropriations bill can be seen here. ]]>
Cloture Votestag:www.congressdb.com,2007:/blog//4.6962007-10-19T01:22:04Z2007-10-19T01:22:41ZRottenchesterhttp://fighting29th.comNew Featurestag:www.congressdb.com,2007:/blog//4.6812007-10-12T19:25:15Z2007-10-12T19:47:34ZRottenchesterhttp://fighting29th.com The "list votes" link is gone from the Statistics Available list. You may list all the votes for a given legislator by choosing the vote group "All House Votes" or "All Senate Votes", then clicking on the name of that vote group in the individual statistics page. ]]>
Introducing CongressDBtag:www.congressdb.com,2007:/blog//4.6722007-10-08T01:30:00Z2007-10-08T01:26:28ZRottenchesterhttp://fighting29th.com
CongressDB. Its goal is to make the charts and graphs that I use available for every Member of Congress. CongressDB has its own blog, and I'll be posting there on topics related to the technology of CongressDB, and my views on open source journalism. This post is cross-posted to both the Fighting 29th and CongressDB, but I won't be cluttering up the Fighting29th with information CongressDB postings.
CongressDB is in its infancy, but it contains two features that I wasn't able to find on the other great services on the Internet.
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Vote groups is the second feature of CongressDB. For the House, the current example groups include "All House Votes", "Close House Votes", and "Significant Votes". That last group is my hand-picked set of votes that is available for Randy Kuhl on the Fighting 29th. (By the way, that page is now auto-generated from CongressDB, and I hope to offer the same feature to other bloggers.)
CongressDB allows the user to view stats for any combination of cohort and vote group. Those stats include the usual (votes for, against, absent or present) as well as the one I find most interesting: votes against party. This is the number of times the voter was on the other side of the tally from the rest of his party.
CongressDB has one basic graph, but it's also one I haven't seen anywhere else (perhaps because it only makes sense to me). It places the chosen legislator in context with his cohort. The example graph on the right shows Randy Kuhl's votes against party on significant votes, compared to all other Republicans in close races. The green line shows the average voter in close-race Republicans, who voted against party 17 times. Kuhl's value of 20 votes against party shows that he's a little more independent than average.
I'll be posting more on where I'd like to take CongressDB, but right now I'm interested in just getting it out there and working out the inevitable bugs. If you notice anything amiss, please drop me a note in the comments or via email. ]]>
CongressDB 0.1 Is Livetag:www.congressdb.com,2007:/blog//4.6702007-10-07T17:30:00Z2007-10-07T17:19:07ZRottenchesterhttp://fighting29th.com
CongressDB has one basic graph, but it's also one I haven't seen anywhere else (perhaps because it only makes sense to me). It places the chosen legislator in context with his cohort. The example graph on the right shows Randy Kuhl's votes against party on significant votes, compared to all other Republicans in close races. The green line shows the average voter in close-race Republicans, who voted against party 17 times. Kuhl's value of 20 votes against party shows that he's a little more independent than average.