Open source, procurement, and gov tech.
Here’s the thing about Rep. Robert Hurt: he’s a perfectly average congressman. It’s tough to campaign against average. There’s a reason why just a shade less than 100% of Congressmen seeking reelection are successful: they keep their mouths shut and try not to do anything, while their staff dutifully arranges tours of the Capitol, mails …
Continue reading “Don’t average voters deserve a little representation?”
With last week’s news that Rep. Robert Hurt was a no-show at the Senior Statesmen of Virginia’s candidates forum in Charlottesville, I think it’s time to revisit Hurt’s claim of accessibility two years ago, when he was running to unseat Rep. Tom Perriello: Hurt was also asked if voters should expect him, if he is …
Continue reading “Hurt is failing his campaign promise of beating Perriello’s accessibility record.”
Since March, my 9–5 job has been building The State Decoded, software based on my Virginia Decoded site. Although it would be fun to have spent all of this time adding new features to Virginia Decoded, most of it has been spent adapting the software to support a wide variety of legal structures. I released …
The Sunlight Foundation has put together a very kind mini-documentary about my open government technology work. (I can’t see that any of its contents will come as news to anybody who reads this blog.) It was fun to participate in the making of it, and it was a joy to watch filmmakers Tiina Knuutila and …
From the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations comes their annual report on spending on the legislature, this one for the 2012–2013 fiscal year. It includes this gem of a section (on pages 17–18) on proposed spending to let people download copies of bills: During the hearings this year, the Committee heard testimony on the dissemination …
Continue reading “Congress declines to let people download copies of bills.”
With the Virginia State Board of Elections starting to provide bulk campaign finance data, a whole new world of data has opened up, and I intend to make the most of it. Although the esteemed Virginia Public Access Project has long provided this information (laboriously cleaned up and displayed in a user-friendly fashion), it’s useful …
Continue reading “Opening up Virginia campaign finance data with Saberva.”
In the Daily Progress today, Graham Moomaw’s coverage of the Republican Senate candidates’ remarks to a tiny gathering of Charlottesville Republicans contains a few great nuggets. First, Del. Bob Marshall bragging that in twenty years as a legislator, he hasn’t learned anything: During his speech, Marshall portrayed himself as a savvy hard-liner who would hold …
Continue reading “Gay sex, civil rights, and star-spangled axes.”
I can now say for sure which delegates were actually present at yesterday morning’s vote on Tracy Thorne-Begland’s nomination, and just pretending that they weren’t there. Anna Scholl was kind enough to send me the House of Delegates’ vote tallies for judicial nominations on Monday night / Tuesday morning, towards the goal of identifying who …
Further to the 26 delegates who didn’t vote and the 10 delegates who abstained from voting for Tracy Thorne-Begland’s judicial nomination, I want to highlight Del. Jennifer McClellan’s comments explaining the distinction: For the record, 4 delegates were not present at all on Monday due to “pressing personal business” (which is how excused absences are …
Continue reading “Who can account for the missing nineteen legislators?”
Monday night, my wife and I stayed up late to watch live video of the House debate the nomination of Tracy Thorne-Begland to a judgeship. My wife and Tracy went through the Sorensen Political Leaders Program together. We know Tracy, and we know him to be a stellar human being. Watching his nomination fall in …