[This file contains more than one item.] Date: Fri, 4 Aug 1995 18:06:57 -0400 From: James Love To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Groups Seek Broader Online Access to Congressional Information ----------------------------------------------------------------- TAP-INFO - An Internet newsletter available from listproc@tap.org ----------------------------------------------------------------- TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE Crown Jewels Campaign - Congressional Information August 4, 1995 - Groups seek signatures for letter to Gingrich broadening public access to Congressional information. Letter asks Gingrich to add a number of new items to Library of Congress THOMAS or GPO Access systems. The text of the letter is given below. To sign, send the following information to Gary Ruskin (gary@essential.org) by August 21, 1995. Thanks much. jamie love, TAP. (love@tap.org, 202/387-8030) Name: ________________________________________________ Title (optional) ______________________________________ Affiliation (optional) __________________________________ Address: _______________________________________________ City, State (very important) ____________________________ E-mail address: ________________________________________ the letter follows ----------------------------------------------------------------- August 4, 1995 Speaker Newt Gingrich U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 via the Internet: GEORGIA6@HR.HOUSE.GOV Dear Speaker Gingrich: We are writing to ask for a renewed commitment to provide Americans with online access to essential Congressional documents. In your November 11, 1994 remarks to the Washington Research Group Symposium, which are reprinted in your book "Contract With America," you state that "we will change the rules of the House to require that all documents and all conference reports and all committee reports be filed electronically as well as in writing and that they cannot be filed until they are available to any citizen who wants to pull them up. Thus, information will be available to any citizen in the country at the same moment it is available to the highest paid Washington lobbyist." On January 5, 1995, you voiced your support for a letter signed by more than 800 Americans requesting free online access to Congressional documents. Commenting on their letter, you said, according to the January 14, 1995 issue of the National Journal, "Great! I want every American to have the maximum access to information, with the minimum cost, with the greatest convenience." But your promise to provide online access to Congressional documents still remains unfulfilled. There are many important Congressional documents which are not available on the Library of Congress THOMAS system, GPO Access or any other government service. In particular: 1. Committee prints of bills. One of the most serious problems is the restricted access to "committee prints" of bills. While ordinary citizens are examining the copies of bills which have been introduced and made available through THOMAS and GPO Access, lobbyists and other well-connected insiders are studying the paper copies of a committee print or "chairman's mark" of a bill, which are the relevant documents for legislation. The House policy of preventing GPO from disseminating committee prints without permission of the chair of the committee is outrageous and should be changed. These documents should be available on the Internet as soon as they are available. 2. Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports. The Federal Elections Commission (FEC) reports on campaign contributions are of interest to millions of Americans. Online access through THOMAS or GPO Access would greatly broaden the dissemination of this important information. 3. Committee reports. When a committee passes a bill, it provides a report with important information explaining the bill, the hearings held, and the dissenting views on the legislation. Your promise to provide these documents on the Internet has not been fulfilled. As a result, citizens are still having great difficulty following the furious pace of legislative activity on a wide range of issues. 4. Voting records of members of Congress. While the votes on bills reaching the floor of the Senate or House are recorded in the online version of the Congressional Record, it is very time-consuming and often difficult to find these without extensive browsing of the documents. As we have suggested before, citizens should be able to access voting records on bills and amendments directly, indexed by bill title, bill number, and bill subject. 5. Amendments. Amendments should be made available on THOMAS as early as possible, so that citizens can review the substance of the amendment and make their views heard. For example, until an amendment is online, it should not be considered "introduced." 6. Congressional Research Service reports. In September 1994, CRS announced a pilot project for the electronic distribution of CRS Reports and Issue Briefs to Congressional offices. However, ordinary citizens are still without online access to these documents. These documents should be available to the public on THOMAS and GPO Access. 7. Verbatim transcripts (both corrected and uncorrected) from Congressional Hearings. Lobbyists can buy these from transcribers, but ordinary citizens have to wait months or even years for printed hearing records. We want uncorrected transcripts made available the day after the hearing, and corrected transcripts available ASAP. 8. Congressional testimonies. If persons testifying before Congress provide an electronic copy of their prepared testimony, the testimony should be immediately placed on THOMAS or GPO Access for broader public access. All government officials should be required to provide electronic copies of their prepared testimonies for public dissemination. 9. Discharge Petitions. The lists of Discharge Petition signers should be available online. If you have any questions about how the House might put these materials online, or if you wish to discuss these issues, you can contact James Love at (202)387-8030 or Gary Ruskin at (202) 296-2787. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Sincerely, James Love, Director, Taxpayer Assets Project Gary Ruskin, Director, Congressional Accountability Project Jim Warren, Columnist, Govt. Technology, MicroTimes, BoardWatch Paul Jacob, Executive Director, U. S. Term Limits Richard Vuernick, Legal Policy Director, Citizen Action Cleta Deatherage Mitchell, Director, Term Limits Legal Institute Tom Devine, Legal Director, Government Accountability Project Danielle Brian, Exec. Director, Project on Government Oversight Michael Panetta, CyberStrategy Project, Feder. of Am. Scientists Conrad Martin, Executive Director, Fund for Constitutional Govt. Lori Fena, Executive Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Congressional Accountability Project is a Ralph Nader Congressional reform group. For more information about the Congressional Accountability Project, send e-mail to gary@essential.org. The Taxpayer Assets Project is a part of the Center for Study of Responsive Law, which was founded by Ralph Nader. For more information about the Taxpayer Assets Project, send e-mail to love@tap.org or check out the tap archives at (http://www.essential.org/tap/tap.org; or gopher://tap.org). PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY [end first item] September 18, 1995 - Problems persist with access to House Legislation. At 5 pm today the House Ways and Means Committee meets to mark-up key tax bill. Committee staff tells citizens that they must contact BNA for paper copies of proposed legislation (for $27) and that electronic copies are available from LEXIS. TAP, Congressional Accountablity Project and Center for Responsive Politics write to Gingrich (again), asking him to keep his promise to gives ordinary citizens same access as high priced lobbyists. The letter follows. jamie (love@tap.org) September 18, 1995 Speaker Newt Gingrich U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 via Internet: georgia6@hr.house.gov voice 202/225-4501; fax 202/225-4656 Dear Mr. Speaker: We are writing to express our outrage over the House of Representatives' failure to provide the public copies of Representative Archer's "Chairman's Mark" for the tax bill which will be marked up today at 5 pm in the House Ways and Means Committee. We contacted the House Ways and Means Committee to obtain copies of the legislation, and were told that it was only available on paper from the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA), or online from commercial vendors, such as LEXIS/NEXIS. Representative Archer's staff gave us a telephone number for BNA (202/452-4323). BNA told us that the price of the bill is $27. The Archer staffer said the bill runs more than 700 pages. Unless the bill was written by BNA, the House of Representatives must have a copy in digital form. Your promise that Congressional information "will be available to any citizen in the country at the same moment it is available to the highest paid Washington lobbyist" is pretty meaningless if the Chairman's Mark for a 700 page tax bill involving billions of dollars isn't available from THOMAS or the Committee before the mark-up. What's the deal? If citizens can't get copies of a bill before committee action, and lobbyists can, lobbyists will continue to have more access to the legislative process than ordinary citizens. We wrote to you on August 22, 1995 to express our concerns about the very problems which occurred today. We have yet to receive a response. Please tell us what you plan to do to keep your promise regarding citizen access to Congressional information. Sincerely, James Love, Taxpayer Assets Project, 202/387-8030, love@tap.org Gary Ruskin, Congressional Accountability Project, 202/296-2787, gary@essential.org Ellen Miller, Center for Responsive Politics, 202/202/857-0044 --------------------------------------------------------------------- TAP-INFO is an Internet Distribution List provided by the Taxpayer Assets Project (TAP). TAP was founded by Ralph Nader to monitor the management of government property, including information systems and data, government funded R&D, spectrum allocation and other government assets. TAP-INFO reports on TAP activities relating to federal information policy. TAP-INFO is archived at gopher.essential.org in the Taxpayer Assets Project directory, and at http://www.essential.org/tap/tap.html Subscription requests to tap-info to listproc@tap.org with the message: subscribe tap-info your name --------------------------------------------------------------------- Taxpayer Assets Project; P.O. 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