Watch the drama unfold

Many people around my age probably remember the Schoolhouse Rocks song entitled "I'm just a bill". I not only remember it but I have the DVD and my 3 year old loves it. That song makes the journey of a bill on its way to, hopefully, becoming a law interesting. Once we get older, many of us have quickly lost that interest. However, I have found something today that might rekindle that interest for some of you. ...

I was reading an article on slashdot that discussed the Terrorist Hoax Improvements Act of 2007 ( S. 735 ) and how it relates to the Mooninite Scare in Boston earlier this year. I wanted to see what the bill, well amendment, actually said. My googling lead me to GovTrack.us. The first sentence on their about page says it all:

Transparency in government is key for a healthy representative democracy.

Feel Free to read more of the about page.

While checking out the site I came across a very interesting find. The have a ton of feeds for watching bills make their way through congress. They have feeds for new bills, new laws and each bill has a feed to watch that specific bills progress through congress. As I stated before you can read the text of the bills. You can also see who sponsored and co-sponsored the bills and as they are voted on you can see who voted for and against these bills. While this information is all available online in other forms, they have created a nice system for more easily tracking bills.

I suggest checking out the new bills and keeping an eye on a few that interest you. If they were just introduced, the full text might not be available yet but it should be soon.