Chapter 18. Case Study: GovTrack.us

—Joshua Tauberer

More than 10,000 bills are on the table for discussion in the U.S. Congress at any given time. The most important bills can be 500 pages long or longer, and they can be rewritten several times on their way to becoming law. And with its 200 committees and subcommittees, Congress is overwhelming to anyone who is watching. The sheer volume of information coming out of Congress is itself a threat to government transparency. How can a representative be accountable if his legislative actions are too numerous to track? How can one take a stand on a bill if it is impossible to find? How can one know the law when it takes days to read a single bill?