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Source: https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/feed/

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15. <description>Updates from the GovTrack.us team. Analysis of legislation is posted at https://govtrackinsider.com/.</description>
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40. <description><![CDATA[Hi everyone! Your GovTrackers Jesse, Amy, Ben, and Josh have been busy since our last update in 2016 adding new &#8230; <a class="more-link" href="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/12/12/site-updates-in-2017/">More</a>]]></description>
41. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hi everyone! Your GovTrackers Jesse, Amy, Ben, and Josh have been busy since <a href="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/govtrack-site-updates-in-2016/">our last update in 2016</a> adding new information and functionality to the site. Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s new in 2017. Check it out!</p>
42. <h2>New Legislative Information on GovTrack</h2>
43. <h3>Misconduct Database</h3>
44. <p>Just last week we launched a new <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/misconduct">database of congressional misconduct</a>, containing criminal and ethics investigations of Members of Congress, such as sexual assault and bribery. You can find it at the link above and on pages for Members of Congress that have been the subject of an investigation, as in the case of <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/greg_gianforte/412736#">Rep. Gianforte</a> shown in this image:</p>
45. <p><img data-attachment-id="5469" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/12/12/site-updates-in-2017/image4144/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image4144.png" data-orig-size="800,450" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="image4144" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image4144.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image4144.png?w=800" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5469" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image4144.png?w=1140" alt="image4144"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image4144.png 800w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image4144.png?w=150&amp;h=84 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image4144.png?w=300&amp;h=169 300w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image4144.png?w=768&amp;h=432 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></p>
46. <h3>Tracking Provisions of Bills with a new Text Incorporation Analysis</h3>
47. <p>Late last year we launched a <a href="https://medium.com/@govtrack/how-a-complex-network-of-bills-becomes-a-law-9972b9624d36#.trjqjylrp">new analysis of legislative text that follows provisions</a> as they are moved into large omnibus bills. You&#8217;ll now see more information on bill pages when a bill&#8217;s provisions have been inserted into a bill that was enacted, or if an enacted bill drew from provisions in other bills (at the bottom of this screenshot):</p>
48. <p><img data-attachment-id="5470" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/12/12/site-updates-in-2017/image4144-2/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image41441.png" data-orig-size="804,829" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="image4144" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image41441.png?w=291" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image41441.png?w=804" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5470" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image41441.png?w=1140" alt="image4144"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image41441.png 804w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image41441.png?w=145&amp;h=150 145w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image41441.png?w=291&amp;h=300 291w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/image41441.png?w=768&amp;h=792 768w" sizes="(max-width: 804px) 100vw, 804px" /></p>
49. <p>You can also use a new &#8220;<a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?status=28,29,32,33&amp;sort=-current_status_date#enacted_ex=on&amp;current_status=__ALL__">enacted &#8212; including by incorporation</a>&#8221; filter in the advanced search to see bills that have had most of their provisions enacted via other bills.</p>
50. <h3>Legislator Scorecards</h3>
51. <p>We&#8217;ve also rounded up some scorecards put out by advocacy organizations, from Americans for Prosperity to the ACLU, and listed the scores Members of Congress received from these organizations on their pages on GovTrack. You can see where it is on the first screenshot in this post, above. Scorecards were added to GovTrack a few months ago.</p>
52. <h3>Committee Reports</h3>
53. <p>We&#8217;re now linking out to committee reports in bill status time-lines (<a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr1545">example</a>):</p>
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55. <p>Committee reports are an excellent source of information about the purpose of legislation. Click <em>Read Report</em> to get it. The reports are also listed on committee pages on the site. We&#8217;re also showing some committee meetings in the bill time-lines now too.</p>
56. <h2>Making Congress More Accessible</h2>
57. <h3>Pronunciation Guide</h3>
58. <p>Is it <em>ah-MO-day</em> or <em>ah-mo-DEE</em>? This week we added a pronunciation guide for the name of every Member of Congress appearing at the top of every page for Members of Congress. You can see it in the first screenshot above in this post, or head over to <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/mark_amodei/412500">Rep. Mark Amodei&#8217;s page</a> to see how his name is properly pronounced.</p>
59. <h3>Spanish Translation</h3>
60. <p><span id="__w2_yNiWPnh_answer_content" class="inline_editor_value"><span class="rendered_qtext">Hablas Español?</span></span> We&#8217;ve added a translate button at the top of every page to see GovTrack.us in Spanish:</p>
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62. <h3>Screen Reader Improvements</h3>
63. <p>We also made some improvements to how our pages are coded so that they hopefully work better in screen readers for users with visual disabilities. If you have a visual disability, <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/contact">let us know</a> how we can further improve the site.</p>
64. <h3>Committee Jurisdictions</h3>
65. <p>On our <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/committees/">committees page</a>, we&#8217;re now listing each committee&#8217;s jurisdiction so you have more of an idea about what the committee actually does:</p>
66. <p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5472" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/12/12/site-updates-in-2017/screenshot-from-2017-12-12-18-02-15/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/screenshot-from-2017-12-12-18-02-15.png" data-orig-size="1205,367" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Screenshot from 2017-12-12 18-02-15" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/screenshot-from-2017-12-12-18-02-15.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/screenshot-from-2017-12-12-18-02-15.png?w=1024" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5472" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/screenshot-from-2017-12-12-18-02-15.png?w=1140" alt="Screenshot from 2017-12-12 18-02-15.png"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/screenshot-from-2017-12-12-18-02-15.png 1205w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/screenshot-from-2017-12-12-18-02-15.png?w=150&amp;h=46 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/screenshot-from-2017-12-12-18-02-15.png?w=300&amp;h=91 300w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/screenshot-from-2017-12-12-18-02-15.png?w=768&amp;h=234 768w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/screenshot-from-2017-12-12-18-02-15.png?w=1024&amp;h=312 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1205px) 100vw, 1205px" /></p>
67. <h2>New Ways You Can Use GovTrack</h2>
68. <h3>Facebook Messenger Alerts to Call Your Reps</h3>
69. <p>In partnership with <a href="http://callparty.org/">Call Party</a>, we launched a new way you can stay in touch with your Members of Congress. We&#8217;ll send you a message on Facebook Messenger when there are issues in Congress for you to call about, and we&#8217;ll walk you through exactly how to dial your representative and senator and what to say.</p>
70. <p><a href="https://www.messenger.com/t/govtrack">Say &#8220;hi&#8221; to us on Messenger to get started.</a> We&#8217;ll reply (automatically) once you say hello.</p>
71. <p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5474" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/12/12/site-updates-in-2017/untitled-5/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled2.png" data-orig-size="449,167" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Untitled" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled2.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled2.png?w=449" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5474" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled2.png?w=1140" alt="Untitled.png"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled2.png 449w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled2.png?w=150&amp;h=56 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled2.png?w=300&amp;h=112 300w" sizes="(max-width: 449px) 100vw, 449px" /></p>
72. <h3>Record your opinion on a five-point scale</h3>
73. <p>In <a href="https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/news/news-stories/2017/october/govtrack.html">partnership with Carnegie Mellon University</a>, we created a new tool for you to save your opinion on legislation so you can come back to it later:</p>
74. <p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5475" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/12/12/site-updates-in-2017/untitled-6/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled3.png" data-orig-size="315,111" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Untitled" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled3.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled3.png?w=315" class=" size-full wp-image-5475 aligncenter" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled3.png?w=1140" alt="Untitled.png"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled3.png 315w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled3.png?w=150&amp;h=53 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled3.png?w=300&amp;h=106 300w" sizes="(max-width: 315px) 100vw, 315px" /></p>
75. <p>You can choose on a five-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree, and you can enter notes about the legislation. Both your opinion and your notes are private &#8211; we won&#8217;t share them with anyone. You can find all of the bills you entered your opinion or notes on on the new <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/accounts/positions">What You Have a Position On</a> page.</p>
76. <h3>We&#8217;re Tweeting Bill Status Updates</h3>
77. <p>We also began tweeting bill status updates and summaries of the previous day&#8217;s legislative activity every hour on the hour, in addition to our other tweets with links to bill summaries, occasional live-tweeting of hearings, and some commentary.</p>
78. <div class="embed-twitter">
79. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
80. <p lang="en" dir="ltr">H.R. 3669 by <a href="https://twitter.com/RepRonEstes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepRonEstes</a> passed the House yesterday (→Senate). Securing General Aviation and Commercial Charter Air Carrier Service Act of 2017 <a href="https://t.co/cnuPXCscDa">https://t.co/cnuPXCscDa</a> <img src="https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/1f3db.png" alt="🏛" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /></p>
81. <p>&mdash; GovTrack.<img src="https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/1f1fa-1f1f8.png" alt="🇺🇸" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /> (@govtrack) <a href="https://twitter.com/govtrack/status/940657587523063814?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 12, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
82. <p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
83. <p><a href="https://twitter.com/govtrack">Follow us on Twitter</a> to get these updates and more.</p>
84. <p>We also made a Twitter list <a href="https://twitter.com/govtrack/lists/members-of-congress">govtrack/members-of-congress</a> that you can use to see all of the tweets of Members of Congress (thanks to the <a href="https://github.com/unitedstates/congress-legislators/">congress-legislators project</a>).</p>
85. <h2>Some Other New Pages on GovTrack</h2>
86. <p>There are a few other new pages on GovTrack:</p>
87. <ul>
88. <li><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congressional-procedures">Congressional Procedures</a>, a collection of Congressional Research Service reports about how Congress works</li>
89. <li><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/how-a-bill-becomes-a-law">How a Bill Becomes a Law</a></li>
90. <li><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/what-is-the-law">How Laws Are Made</a>, covering aspects of United States law that are beyond how a bill becomes a law</li>
91. <li><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/sousveillance">What is Congress Browsing?</a> See what pages on GovTrack have been visited by congressional staff.</li>
92. </ul>
93. <p>We continue to post bill explainers and <a href="https://govtrackinsider.com/tagged/features">feature articles</a> about Congress on <a href="http://govtrackinsider.com/">GovTrack Insider</a>. Here are some of our favorites from this year:</p>
94. <ul>
95. <li><a href="https://govtrackinsider.com/what-the-first-congress-of-1789-can-teach-the-congress-of-2017-f136a2baee92">What the first Congress of 1789 can teach the Congress of 2017</a></li>
96. <li>A series on <a href="https://govtrackinsider.com/tagged/trumpnominees">President Trump&#8217;s Nominees that came from Congress</a></li>
97. <li><a href="https://govtrackinsider.com/could-the-first-new-military-branch-since-1947-be-established-this-year-aacbee3a790e">Could the first new military branch since 1947 be established this year?</a>, a summary of part of the National Defense Authorization Act</li>
98. <li>We&#8217;ve posted around 100 <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/events/bill-summaries">summaries of bills</a> this year, and we&#8217;ve also been posting selected summaries of <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes">votes</a>.</li>
99. </ul>
100. <h2>Some Design Improvements</h2>
101. <h3>Some Pages Got a New Look</h3>
102. <p>As you&#8217;ve already seen above, the bill pages and the pages for Members of Congress got a refresh this year, as did the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/">homepage</a>.</p>
103. <h3>Email Updates Are Improved on Mobile Devices</h3>
104. <p>Our email updates now fit better on smaller screens, and they have thumbnails next to tracked events now too!</p>
105. <p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5476" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/12/12/site-updates-in-2017/untitled-7/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled4.png" data-orig-size="871,502" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Untitled" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled4.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled4.png?w=871" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5476" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled4.png?w=1140" alt="Untitled.png"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled4.png 871w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled4.png?w=150&amp;h=86 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled4.png?w=300&amp;h=173 300w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled4.png?w=768&amp;h=443 768w" sizes="(max-width: 871px) 100vw, 871px" /></p>
106. <h3>More Citations are Linked in Bill Text</h3>
107. <p>We also improved our bill text to hyperlink more citations. See the &#8220;81 Fed. Reg. 93066&#8221; link in the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hjres16/text">bill text</a> below:</p>
108. <p><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5477" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/12/12/site-updates-in-2017/untitled-8/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled5.png" data-orig-size="935,355" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Untitled" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled5.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled5.png?w=935" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5477" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled5.png?w=1140" alt="Untitled.png"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled5.png 935w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled5.png?w=150&amp;h=57 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled5.png?w=300&amp;h=114 300w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/untitled5.png?w=768&amp;h=292 768w" sizes="(max-width: 935px) 100vw, 935px" /></p>
109. <h2>Behind the Scenes</h2>
110. <h3>In the News</h3>
111. <p>We were <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/press">cited in news articles</a> dozens of times this year, often <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-laws-has-trump-signed-so-far-200-days-obama-clinton-bush-reagan-2017-8">fact-checking the number of laws President Trump claimed he signed</a>. (He&#8217;s currently signed the second fewest bills of any President&#8217;s first year going at least as far back as President Eisenhower.)</p>
112. <h3>Charter</h3>
113. <p>This summer we also <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/about">adopted a charter</a> to clearly lay out our objectives as an organization.</p>
114. <h3>Discontinued Bulk Data and API</h3>
115. <p>To focus more on the parts of GovTrack that are most needed <a href="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/ending-govtracks-bulk-data-and-api/">we discontinued our bulk data and API</a>, used by researchers and app developers, when Congress began its summer recess.</p>
116. <h3>Diversity Report</h3>
117. <p>We also published what we called <a href="https://medium.com/@govtrack/our-first-diversity-report-23346c6232ad">our first diversity report</a>, which is a way for us to be held accountable to both reaching a diverse audience and also hiring a diverse staff.</p>
118. <h3>Four Staffers</h3>
119. <p>This year we added a new staff member, bringing our team to four part-time staffers: Jesse Rifkin, our reporter; Ben Hammer, our partnerships manager; Amy West, our editor and social media manager; and Joshua Tauberer, GovTrack&#8217;s founder and technician. We&#8217;ve also had help from some short-term helpers this year. Thanks to our team!</p>
120. <h3>Backer Update</h3>
121. <p>Finally, thanks to YOU.</p>
122. <p>Between our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/govtrack">monthly supporters</a> and those that <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/accounts/membership">sent us a one-time tip</a>, we&#8217;ve been able to expand our operations a little and bring you all of the new features, explainers, and tweets you&#8217;ve seen over the last year. Without our users we&#8217;d have no reason to keep the lights on, but without our supporters the light would be very dim indeed. If you haven&#8217;t already, please consider supporting our work by clicking one of the preceding links.</p>
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167. </item>
168. <item>
169. <title>2017 Backer Update</title>
170. <link>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/07/30/2017-backer-update/</link>
172. <dc:creator><![CDATA[GovTrack.us]]></dc:creator>
173. <pubDate>Sun, 30 Jul 2017 12:26:48 +0000</pubDate>
174. <category><![CDATA[Site News]]></category>
175. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://govtracknews.wordpress.com/?p=5460</guid>
176.  
177. <description><![CDATA[Thank you to our users for the incredible support you have given us. For those that have supported us on &#8230; <a class="more-link" href="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/07/30/2017-backer-update/">More</a>]]></description>
178. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="font-weight:400;">Thank you to our users for the incredible support you have given us. For those that have <a href="https://www.patreon.com/govtrack">supported us on Patreon</a> or by <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/accounts/membership">hiding the advertisements</a>, your support does not only benefit the GovTrack team, but also the millions of Americans who uses the site to stay informed. We hope that you will continue helping our users, and that you will keep tracking Congress.</span></p>
179. <p><span style="font-weight:400;">For the first time we&#8217;re publishing a Backer Update</span><span style="font-weight:400;">, in which we highlight some of GovTrack’s recent accomplishments and plans for the future. The update is our way of keeping in contact with our supporters to let you know we are on the right track.</span></p>
180. <p><span style="font-weight:400;">To see the 2017 Backer Update, just follow this link:</span></p>
181. <p><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/files/govtrack_2017_backer_update.pdf"><b>https://www.govtrack.us/files/govtrack_2017_backer_update.pdf</b></a></p>
182. <p>And please <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/contact">get in touch</a> with any feedback.</p>
183. ]]></content:encoded>
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192. <item>
193. <title>How a complex network of bills becomes a law: Introducing a new data analysis of text incorporation!</title>
194. <link>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/how-a-complex-network-of-bills-becomes-a-law-introducing-a-new-data-analysis-of-text-incorporation/</link>
196. <dc:creator><![CDATA[GovTrack.us]]></dc:creator>
197. <pubDate>Sat, 07 Jan 2017 17:12:23 +0000</pubDate>
198. <category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
199. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.govtrack.us/blog/?p=5439</guid>
200.  
201. <description><![CDATA[A new analysis we incorporated into GovTrack late last year reveals when provisions of bills are incorporated into other bills. &#8230; <a class="more-link" href="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/how-a-complex-network-of-bills-becomes-a-law-introducing-a-new-data-analysis-of-text-incorporation/">More</a>]]></description>
202. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A new analysis we incorporated into GovTrack late last year reveals when provisions of bills are incorporated into other bills. Our new tool will reveal much more about what Congress is doing, and what laws are being made, than has ever been known to the general public.</p>
203. <p>For the complete post, <a href="https://medium.com/@govtrack/how-a-complex-network-of-bills-becomes-a-law-9972b9624d36#.trjqjylrp">please read about our data analysis here</a>.</p>
204. <p>All too often Congress cuts bills apart and pastes them back together—sometimes into an “omnibus.” The bills that finally get a vote are an amalgam of provisions from other bills that either can’t or won’t get a standalone vote themselves. The most important legislation is crafted this way.</p>
205. <p><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-bg6uv7umjqcyalu6fgk4kg.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5440" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/how-a-complex-network-of-bills-becomes-a-law-introducing-a-new-data-analysis-of-text-incorporation/1-bg6uv7umjqcyalu6fgk4kg/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-bg6uv7umjqcyalu6fgk4kg.png" data-orig-size="2000,1468" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="1-BG6UV7UmjQcYalU6Fgk4Kg" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-bg6uv7umjqcyalu6fgk4kg.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-bg6uv7umjqcyalu6fgk4kg.png?w=1024" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5440" alt="1-BG6UV7UmjQcYalU6Fgk4Kg" src="https://www.govtrack.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1-BG6UV7UmjQcYalU6Fgk4Kg-300x220.png" width="300" height="220" /></a></p>
206. <p>Seeing the network of bills that eventually become law is crucial for understanding how legislative process works. It is a crucial way the majority and minority parties in Congress work together. Without looking at the network, Congress may appear far more partisan than it really is. And without knowing how Congress works, outsiders can’t hope to be effective participants in our own government.</p>
207. <p>Only about 3% of bills will be enacted through the signature of the President or a veto override. Another 1% are identical to those bills, so-called “companion bills,” which are easily identified. Our new analysis reveals almost another 3% of bills which had substantial parts incorporated into an enacted bill in 2015–2016. To miss that last 3% is to be practically 100% wrong about how many bills are being enacted by Congress.</p>
208. <h3>What to look for on GovTrack</h3>
209. <h4>Bill status now reflects text incorporation</h4>
210. <p>We’ll show show two new statuses for bills when their provisions have been incorporated into enacted bills.</p>
211. <p>The first is “Enacted Via Other Measures,” which we’ll show when a bill has at least about 33% of its provisions incorporated into one or more enacted bills, and we’ll link to the bills its provisions were incorporated into:</p>
212. <p><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-auuygd8t6amyuvxkj4oyca.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5441" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/how-a-complex-network-of-bills-becomes-a-law-introducing-a-new-data-analysis-of-text-incorporation/1-auuygd8t6amyuvxkj4oyca/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-auuygd8t6amyuvxkj4oyca.png" data-orig-size="703,287" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="1-AUuygD8T6aMYuvXKJ4oYCA" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-auuygd8t6amyuvxkj4oyca.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-auuygd8t6amyuvxkj4oyca.png?w=703" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5441" alt="1-AUuygD8T6aMYuvXKJ4oYCA" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-auuygd8t6amyuvxkj4oyca.png?w=1140"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-auuygd8t6amyuvxkj4oyca.png 703w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-auuygd8t6amyuvxkj4oyca.png?w=150&amp;h=61 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-auuygd8t6amyuvxkj4oyca.png?w=300&amp;h=122 300w" sizes="(max-width: 703px) 100vw, 703px" /></a></p>
213. <p id="38b8">We’ll say “Parts Incorporated Into Other Measures” when a bill has some of its text, but less than about 33%, in common with enacted bills.</p>
214. <h4 id="5947">The flip side: Tracing enacted laws back to their sources.</h4>
215. <p id="3435">We’ll also show the same information, but from the opposite perspective, on the pages for enacted bills. When an enacted bill has text in common with other bills, we’ll show all of those other bills in a new section called “Incorporated Legislation”:</p>
216. <p><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-k526ilfhysxnrcbjsa7otg.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5442" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/how-a-complex-network-of-bills-becomes-a-law-introducing-a-new-data-analysis-of-text-incorporation/1-k526ilfhysxnrcbjsa7otg/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-k526ilfhysxnrcbjsa7otg.png" data-orig-size="693,460" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="1-k526ilFhySXnrcBjsA7oTg" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-k526ilfhysxnrcbjsa7otg.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-k526ilfhysxnrcbjsa7otg.png?w=693" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5442" alt="1-k526ilFhySXnrcBjsA7oTg" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-k526ilfhysxnrcbjsa7otg.png?w=1140"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-k526ilfhysxnrcbjsa7otg.png 693w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-k526ilfhysxnrcbjsa7otg.png?w=150&amp;h=100 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/1-k526ilfhysxnrcbjsa7otg.png?w=300&amp;h=199 300w" sizes="(max-width: 693px) 100vw, 693px" /></a></p>
217. <figure id="278c">
218. <p id="cc7f">In both cases, “compare text” links take you to a comparison of the text of the two bills (a feature we’ve long had).</p>
219. <h4 id="71f1">In bill search</h4>
220. <p id="10e5">Our <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">advanced search</a> has been updated to allow you to find <em>all</em> bills that we consider enacted, either the real way (signed by the President, etc.) or by what we now call “enacted via other measures” (see above). Turn on theEnacted?—?Including by Incorporation into Other Bills filter to see them all.</p>
221. <figure id="32ba"><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/660/1*cgeOr57S_-xaSUfkduOslQ.png" /><figcaption><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse</a></figcaption></figure>
222. <p id="942a">This is particularly useful when you want to see what laws a particular Member of Congress had a leading role in getting enacted. You’ll want to count not only the enacted bills that had their name on it but also ones that weren’t enacted but had significant provisions moved into bills that were. The <em>Enacted?—?Including by Incorporation into Other Bills</em>filter does just that.</p>
223. <p id="4b4d">(This filter replaces an earlier filter called “Enacted?—?Including via Companion Bills” which performed the same function but only included bills identified by the CRS as totally identical (see below). The new functionality goes beyond identical.)</p>
224. <h4 id="9fc9">Legislator pages now list recent enacted bills</h4>
225. <p id="cbe4">Now that we can identify all of the bills that were “enacted” by a legislator, including via text incorporation, we are able to show that on our legislator pages. Here’s the new Enacted Legislation section on the page for <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/steve_daines/412549" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Sen. Steve Daines</a>, showing a bill that had a major component incorporated into two other bills that were enacted:</p>
226. <figure id="ab10">
227. <div><img alt="" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/880/1*XxqVp8filHUyYdVtE7MUlQ.png" /></div>
228. </figure>
229. <p id="e604">The laws enacted part of our legislator report cards, which <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2016" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">show key legislative statistics for each legislator</a>, now include bills enacted via text incorporation rather than just bills enacted the usual way.</p>
230. </figure>
231. ]]></content:encoded>
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237. <media:title type="html">govtrackus</media:title>
238. </media:content>
239.  
240. <media:content url="https://www.govtrack.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1-BG6UV7UmjQcYalU6Fgk4Kg-300x220.png" medium="image">
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242. </media:content>
243.  
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250. </media:content>
251.  
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253.  
254. <media:content url="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/880/1*XxqVp8filHUyYdVtE7MUlQ.png" medium="image" />
255. </item>
256. <item>
257. <title>Ending GovTrack&#8217;s bulk data and API</title>
258. <link>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/ending-govtracks-bulk-data-and-api/</link>
259. <comments>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/ending-govtracks-bulk-data-and-api/#comments</comments>
261. <dc:creator><![CDATA[GovTrack.us]]></dc:creator>
262. <pubDate>Sat, 10 Dec 2016 15:22:05 +0000</pubDate>
263. <category><![CDATA[Site News]]></category>
264. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.govtrack.us/blog/?p=5435</guid>
265.  
266. <description><![CDATA[Open legislative data has been a core part of GovTrack&#8217;s mission since 2005, when there wasn&#8217;t very much of it. &#8230; <a class="more-link" href="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/ending-govtracks-bulk-data-and-api/">More</a>]]></description>
267. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Open legislative data has been a core part of GovTrack&#8217;s mission since 2005, when there wasn&#8217;t very much of it. We were the first to provide comprehensive information about Congress&#8217;s legislative activities in an open, structured data format &#8212; a technical format that software developers (building websites and apps), journalists, and researchers used for new and unexpected purposes to create a more open and accountable government.</p>
268. <p>Eventually other organizations and Congress itself joined the effort. Official data from Congress <a href="https://medium.com/@joshuatauberer/govtrack-now-actually-uses-open-government-data-5fc16f377e86#.b3g82jbb9">reached new heights this year</a>, after a long campaign by us and other advocates, and organizations like <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/represent/">ProPublica</a> have become data providers too.</p>
269. <p><span style="line-height:1.5em;">Consequently, I&#8217;ve decided that it is time for us to end our work on open data so we can use our time more effectively on other parts of GovTrack.us.</span></p>
270. <p><span style="line-height:1.5em;">Our <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/developers/data">open data</a> and <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/developers/api">API</a> will terminate next summer, once Congress begins its summer recess. That gives folks about six months to switch to </span><a style="line-height:1.5em;" href="https://propublica.github.io/congress-api-docs/">ProPublica&#8217;s Congress API</a><span style="line-height:1.5em;">, the </span><a style="line-height:1.5em;" href="https://github.com/unitedstates/congress">congress project scrapers</a><span style="line-height:1.5em;">, or a new bulk data system if someone builds it. I&#8217;ve posted helpful links on </span><a style="line-height:1.5em;" href="https://www.govtrack.us/developers">GovTrack&#8217;s developers page</a><span style="line-height:1.5em;">. If you&#8217;re not familiar with the term open data, this doesn&#8217;t impact you &#8212; the GovTrack website will continue as always.</span></p>
271. <p><span style="line-height:1.5em;">I&#8217;ll still be helping out with the <a href="https://github.com/unitedstates/congress-legislators">congress-legislators</a> project, which is the best place to get legislator data now, and where GovTrack will continue to get its legislator data, and the <a href="https://github.com/unitedstates/congress">congress</a> project, which is the home of most of the data collection scripts we run to gather all of the data in the first place. I&#8217;ll also find a new way to publish GovTrack&#8217;s historical legislative data (votes from 1789, bills from 1973) which aren&#8217;t available in a structured data format elsewhere.</span></p>
272. <p>The end of our bulk data and API is a recognition that it worked. For instance, our data fed into Sunlight Foundation&#8217;s Drumbone API in 2010, which became Sunlight&#8217;s Real Time Congress API, which became Sunlight&#8217;s Congress API, which became the ProPublica Congress API this year. Our work in open legislative data is still living on.</p>
273. <p>Calling success and moving on from being a raw data provider will let us spend our resources on comparatively more impactful efforts going forward.</p>
274. ]]></content:encoded>
276. <wfw:commentRss>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/ending-govtracks-bulk-data-and-api/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
277. <slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
281. <media:content url="https://0.gravatar.com/avatar/350a5a39da7ce68a0e2ecac43c16b1c7096a37c0b324667bb8ca2eae74cb3c1c?s=96&#38;d=identicon&#38;r=G" medium="image">
282. <media:title type="html">govtrackus</media:title>
283. </media:content>
284. </item>
285. <item>
286. <title>GovTrack Site Updates in 2016</title>
287. <link>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/govtrack-site-updates-in-2016/</link>
288. <comments>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/govtrack-site-updates-in-2016/#comments</comments>
290. <dc:creator><![CDATA[GovTrack.us]]></dc:creator>
291. <pubDate>Sat, 26 Nov 2016 20:52:19 +0000</pubDate>
292. <category><![CDATA[Site News]]></category>
293. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.govtrack.us/blog/?p=5424</guid>
294.  
295. <description><![CDATA[This past year was a busy year for us. We&#8217;ve made many improvements throughout the site and thanks to users &#8230; <a class="more-link" href="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/govtrack-site-updates-in-2016/">More</a>]]></description>
296. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This past year was a busy year for us. We&#8217;ve made many improvements throughout the site and thanks to users like you we&#8217;ll be able to keep the site going into 2017.</p>
297. <h2>You helped us increase our budget</h2>
298. <p>Thanks to users like you who are supporting us <a href="https://www.patreon.com/govtrack">with monthly contributions</a>, we increased our operating budget by about 33%! We&#8217;ll be putting that to use by keeping <a href="medium.com/govtrack-insider">GovTrack Insider</a> going and making small site improvements. Our goal is to raise enough to hire one full time staff member (we currently have no full time staff), but we&#8217;re still far away from that.</p>
299. <h2>We&#8217;ve been in the news</h2>
300. <p>We were <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/press">in the news</a> many times this year, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylomy1Aw9Hk&amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;t=797">a hilarious mention in Last Week Tonight with John Oliver</a>, a Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/behold-a-bipartisan-congressman/2016/11/03/30de3566-a144-11e6-8d63-3e0a660f1f04_story.html">endorsement</a> of a congressional candidate, election <a href="http://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/florida-rep-ted-yoho-campaign-mailer-gets-facts-wrong/463284021">fact-checking</a> articles, and much more.</p>
301. <h2>We&#8217;ve been writing plain-language summaries of bills</h2>
302. <p>In the summer of 2015 we began writing plain-language summaries of as many bills as we could get to, plus special articles on topics of interest. Some of our recent posts by our staff writer Jesse Rifkin include:</p>
303. <ul>
304. <li>Constitutional amendment proposals in this Congress, an article later <a href="http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/the-candidates-and-the-constitution/" target="_blank">linked to by the New York Times</a>.</li>
305. <li>Why <a href="https://medium.com/govtrack-insider/almost-unanimous-we-asked-why-these-lone-dissenters-withheld-their-votes-on-10-bills-57e7bd647df9" target="_blank">lone dissenters</a> on bills that passed the House 434-1 voted &#8220;no.&#8221; (One representative claimed he voted no by mistake!)</li>
306. <li>Analyzing the congressional voting records of vice presidential candidates <a href="https://medium.com/govtrack-insider/what-sen-tim-kaines-record-says-about-how-he-d-serve-as-vice-president-f4c87003e675" target="_blank">Tim Kaine</a> and <a href="https://medium.com/govtrack-insider/before-mike-pence-was-donald-trumps-running-mate-he-served-in-congress-for-12-years-72b511b95d9" target="_blank">Mike Pence</a>.</li>
307. <li><a href="https://medium.com/govtrack-insider/cruz-sanders-and-paul-are-back-at-their-senate-jobs-we-looked-at-their-latest-bills-d3e94be115e4" target="_blank">Comparing</a> how Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul voted in the Senate once their presidential bids ended, compared to before.</li>
308. <li><a href="https://medium.com/govtrack-insider/five-gun-control-and-mental-health-bills-that-could-pass-post-orlando-70f71dec9762" target="_blank">Five gun control and mental health bills</a> that could pass post-Orlando.</li>
309. <li><span style="line-height:1.5em;">Contrasting Hillary Clinton&#8217;s and Bernie Sanders&#8217;s Senate votes on </span><a style="line-height:1.5em;" href="https://medium.com/govtrack-insider/hillary-clinton-vs-bernie-sanders-their-wall-street-votes-and-proposals-1921962a2e08" target="_blank">Wall Street and the financial industry</a><span style="line-height:1.5em;"> and </span><a style="line-height:1.5em;" href="https://medium.com/govtrack-insider/clinton-s-and-sanders-legislative-records-on-fossil-fuels-ea8e1babe502" target="_blank">on fossil fuels</a><span style="line-height:1.5em;">.</span></li>
310. <li><span style="line-height:1.5em;">We also covered fun bills, like </span><a style="line-height:1.5em;" href="https://medium.com/govtrack-insider/your-first-7-143-barrels-of-beer-would-be-free-of-taxes-if-this-bill-is-enacted-260383091274" target="_blank">this one</a><span style="line-height:1.5em;"> that would significantly lower the price of your beer, </span><a style="line-height:1.5em;" href="https://medium.com/govtrack-insider/tired-of-overpriced-concert-tickets-this-bill-could-end-that-89d3bfdff06a" target="_blank">this one</a><span style="line-height:1.5em;"> that would lower the price of your concert and sports tickets, </span><a style="line-height:1.5em;" href="https://medium.com/govtrack-insider/paint-by-numbers-but-what-if-that-number-is-40-000-35f2e548d1ee" target="_blank">this one</a><span style="line-height:1.5em;"> that would end taxpayer-funded portraits of politicians, and of course we can&#8217;t forget the </span><a style="line-height:1.5em;" href="https://medium.com/govtrack-insider/the-flamethrowers-really-act-is-really-a-bill-to-regulate-the-weapon-e73cf02d8bf4" target="_blank">Flamethrowers? Really? Act</a><span style="line-height:1.5em;">.</span></li>
311. </ul>
312. <h2>Congress finally gave us the data we&#8217;ve been asking for</h2>
313. <p>After 15 years of asking Congress for better data about the status of legislation, Congress finally devised and implemented a new legislative data publication system earlier this year. You can read more about it at <a href="https://medium.com/@joshuatauberer/govtrack-now-actually-uses-open-government-data-5fc16f377e86#.gr3t99xid">my blog post here</a>. It is a big deal that Congress has moved to the 21st century in how they make legislative status data available to us and other data users.</p>
314. <h2>Vote-related new features on GovTrack</h2>
315. <p>We began showing &#8220;key votes&#8221; on the pages for Members of Congress (like here for retiring senator <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/harry_reid/300082">Harry Reid</a>). The key votes are selected automatically based on a statistical analysis.</p>
316. <h2><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-04-33.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5425" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/govtrack-site-updates-in-2016/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-04-33/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-04-33.png" data-orig-size="544,244" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Key Votes" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-04-33.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-04-33.png?w=544" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5425" alt="Key Votes" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-04-33.png?w=1140"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-04-33.png 544w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-04-33.png?w=150&amp;h=67 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-04-33.png?w=300&amp;h=135 300w" sizes="(max-width: 544px) 100vw, 544px" /></a></h2>
317. <h2></h2>
318. <p>We also added some geographic maps of votes for votes in the House of Representatives, using a cartogram so that each congressional district is represented as an equally sized hexagon (<a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/114-2016/h294">example</a>):</p>
319. <p><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-12-03.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5426" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/govtrack-site-updates-in-2016/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-12-03/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-12-03.png" data-orig-size="289,206" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Vote Cartogram" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-12-03.png?w=289" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-12-03.png?w=289" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5426" alt="Vote Cartogram" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-12-03.png?w=1140"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-12-03.png 289w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-12-03.png?w=150&amp;h=107 150w" sizes="(max-width: 289px) 100vw, 289px" /></a></p>
320. <p>And we link to <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/explanations/main/index">ProPublica&#8217;s missed vote explanations</a> site whenever a Member of Congress has an explanation of why they missed a vote.</p>
321. <h2>Site improvements related to bills</h2>
322. <p>You can now react to bills with emjois, like on Facebook, to show what you think about them. You&#8217;ll see this at the top of every bill page:</p>
323. <p><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-21-08.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5427" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/govtrack-site-updates-in-2016/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-21-08/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-21-08.png" data-orig-size="522,114" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="React with an Emoji" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-21-08.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-21-08.png?w=522" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5427" alt="React with an Emoji" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-21-08.png?w=1140"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-21-08.png 522w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-21-08.png?w=150&amp;h=33 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-21-08.png?w=300&amp;h=66 300w" sizes="(max-width: 522px) 100vw, 522px" /></a></p>
324. <p>Every bill page now has a link to <a href="https://if.then.fund/">if.then.fund</a>, our sister site where you can make campaign contributions to Members of Congress that cosponsor bills you support &#8212; or to their opponents if you oppose the bill.</p>
325. <p><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-22-08.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5428" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/govtrack-site-updates-in-2016/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-22-08/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-22-08.png" data-orig-size="639,145" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Bill Actions" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-22-08.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-22-08.png?w=639" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5428" alt="Bill Actions" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-22-08.png?w=1140"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-22-08.png 639w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-22-08.png?w=150&amp;h=34 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-22-08.png?w=300&amp;h=68 300w" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 100vw, 639px" /></a></p>
326. <p>We replaced our prognosis scores with scores computed by <a href="http://predictgov.com/">PredictGov.com</a>. Their predictions about whether or not a bill will be enacted are more accurate than our previous predictions.</p>
327. <p>We&#8217;re pulling in summaries of bills from Wikipedia when we don&#8217;t have a summary.</p>
328. <h2>Site improvements related to Representatives and Senators</h2>
329. <p><span style="font-size:14px;line-height:1.5em;">We completely re-did our congressional district maps, thanks to the help of volunteer Aaron Dennis and the support of mapping company </span><a style="font-size:14px;line-height:1.5em;" href="https://www.mapbox.com/">Mapbox</a><span style="font-size:14px;line-height:1.5em;">, to make our maps cheaper for us to maintain and update.</span></p>
330. <p>Earlier this year we added links to Sunlight Foundation&#8217;s EmailCongress tool, but we removed the links after the Sunlight Foundation discontinued the tool.</p>
331. <h2>Other site improvements</h2>
332. <p>We improved the page load times throughout the site.</p>
333. <p>We simplified the site&#8217;s design, which makes it easier for us to keep the site operating correctly, and we think it is more friendly in some places.</p>
334. <p>See you in 2017!</p>
335. <p>&nbsp;</p>
336. ]]></content:encoded>
338. <wfw:commentRss>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/govtrack-site-updates-in-2016/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
339. <slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
343. <media:content url="https://0.gravatar.com/avatar/350a5a39da7ce68a0e2ecac43c16b1c7096a37c0b324667bb8ca2eae74cb3c1c?s=96&#38;d=identicon&#38;r=G" medium="image">
344. <media:title type="html">govtrackus</media:title>
345. </media:content>
346.  
347. <media:content url="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-04-33.png" medium="image">
348. <media:title type="html">Key Votes</media:title>
349. </media:content>
350.  
351. <media:content url="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-12-03.png" medium="image">
352. <media:title type="html">Vote Cartogram</media:title>
353. </media:content>
354.  
355. <media:content url="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-21-08.png" medium="image">
356. <media:title type="html">React with an Emoji</media:title>
357. </media:content>
358.  
359. <media:content url="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/screenshot-from-2016-11-26-15-22-08.png" medium="image">
360. <media:title type="html">Bill Actions</media:title>
361. </media:content>
362. </item>
363. <item>
364. <title>Presidential Candidates Miss Votes</title>
365. <link>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/presidential-candidates-miss-votes/</link>
366. <comments>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/presidential-candidates-miss-votes/#comments</comments>
368. <dc:creator><![CDATA[GovTrack.us]]></dc:creator>
369. <pubDate>Tue, 27 Oct 2015 05:20:44 +0000</pubDate>
370. <category><![CDATA[Analysis]]></category>
371. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.govtrack.us/blog/?p=5409</guid>
372.  
373. <description><![CDATA[Update: Check out our real-time presidential candidates missed votes tracker. &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212; The 2016 presidential candidates are under a lot of &#8230; <a class="more-link" href="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/presidential-candidates-miss-votes/">More</a>]]></description>
374. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Update: Check out our <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/presidential-candidates">real-time presidential candidates missed votes tracker</a>.</strong></p>
375. <p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
376. <p>The 2016 presidential candidates are under a lot of scrutiny right now, and the five who are sitting senators even more so. <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/marco_rubio/412491">Sen. Marco Rubio</a> in particular has been the focus of criticisms that he hasn&#8217;t showed up to work, starting in February following a <a href="http://www.vocativ.com/usa/us-politics/congress-absenteeism/">Vocative article</a> and most recently a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/20/marco-rubio-blasts-slacker-government-employees-after-missing-his-7th-vote-this-month/">Washington Post article</a> just last week (both based on our data).</p>
377. <p>Rubio and fellow candidate <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/ted_cruz/412573">Sen. Ted Cruz</a> currently hold the #2 and #3 spots in the Senate for highest percentage of missed votes throughout each senator&#8217;s career. (At 11% each, they&#8217;re topped only by a senator who suffered a stroke in 2012 and missed a year of service.) But what about the other candidates?</p>
378. <h3>While Running for President</h3>
379. <p><span style="line-height:1.5em;">We compared all five candidates who are sitting senators </span><em style="line-height:1.5em;">plus</em><span style="line-height:1.5em;"> former senator </span><a style="line-height:1.5em;" href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/hillary_clinton/300022">Hillary Clinton</a><span style="line-height:1.5em;">, who was a senator when she ran for president the first time in 2008 and is now running again. To make it a fair comparison, because not all of the candidates have been serving the same length of time, we looked at only the votes in the last year — the time period when the candidates were running for president. And to compare with Clinton, we looked at her votes during the corresponding time period prior to the 2008 election.</span></p>
380. <p style="text-align:center;"><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled1.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5411" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/presidential-candidates-miss-votes/untitled1/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled1.png" data-orig-size="1060,559" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="2016 Presidential Election Candidates" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled1.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled1.png?w=1024" class="aligncenter  wp-image-5411" alt="2016 Presidential Election Candidates" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled1.png?w=555&#038;h=300" width="555" height="300" /></a></p>
381. <p style="text-align:center;"><em>(Click image to enlarge.)</em></p>
382. <p>They&#8217;ve all missed a lot of votes — well, all except <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/rand_paul/412492">Sen. Rand Paul</a> who is close to the Senate-wide median of 1.1%. <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/marco_rubio/412491">Rubio</a> takes the lead here at 26% of votes missed, with <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/lindsey_graham/300047">Graham</a> (20%) and <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/ted_cruz/412573">Cruz</a> (20%) not far behind. <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/bernard_sanders/400357">Sanders</a>, who is still considered a long-shot, missed 11% of votes. They were all eligible to vote in 379 votes. <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/hillary_clinton/300022">Clinton</a> missed 13% of votes in the corresponding one-year time period that, like today, was 378 days ahead of the 2008 election.</p>
383. <p><span style="line-height:1.5em;">As you&#8217;ll see next, our sitting president missed even more votes than the current candidates when </span><em style="line-height:1.5em;">he</em><span style="line-height:1.5em;"> ran for office.</span></p>
384. <h4>2008</h4>
385. <p>2016 won&#8217;t be the first election when presidential candidates took a rain check on their day jobs. We looked at some of the 2008 candidates during the same one-year time period that, like today, was 378 days ahead of the election. Back then, it was <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/john_mccain/300071">Sen. John McCain</a> (51%) and <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/barack_obama/400629">Sen. Barack Obama</a> (29%) who lead the absenteeism, and it seems like it paid off because they were the candidates who won their party&#8217;s nomination. <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/hillary_clinton/300022">Clinton</a>, who lost the Democratic nomination to Obama, was a little further behind at the 13% mentioned above.</p>
386. <p style="text-align:left;"><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5410" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/presidential-candidates-miss-votes/untitled/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled.png" data-orig-size="1060,559" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="2008 Presidential Election Candidates" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled.png?w=1024" class="aligncenter  wp-image-5410" alt="2008 Presidential Election Candidates" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled.png?w=555&#038;h=300" width="555" height="300" /></a></p>
387. <p style="text-align:center;"><em>(Click image to enlarge.)</em></p>
388. <p style="text-align:left;">The median percent of missed votes across both chambers of Congress was about 2% at the time. The representatives were eligible to vote in 1,009 votes during this time (982 for Bachman because she took office in 2007) and the senators 396 votes.</p>
389. <p style="text-align:left;">Joe Biden, a senator at the time, also ran in 2008, and missed 34% of votes during this time period. He became Obama&#8217;s running mate, and then vice president, and he was considered a likely candidate for the 2016 election, but he recently announced he had declined to run.</p>
390. <h3 style="text-align:left;">Prior to Running for President</h3>
391. <p style="text-align:left;">What about the candidates&#8217; voting records prior to their run for president? We compared the candidates also by looking at the year <em>before </em>the year that we looked at above. That&#8217;s votes in 2014 for the current candidates and votes in 2006 for the 2008 election candidates. Here&#8217;s how they fared then:</p>
392. <p style="text-align:center;"><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled2.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5418" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/presidential-candidates-miss-votes/untitled-2/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled2.png" data-orig-size="1121,648" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Missed Votes Prior to Running for President" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled2.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled2.png?w=1024" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5418" alt="Missed Votes Prior to Running for President" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled2.png?w=1140"   /></a><em>(Click image to enlarge.)</em></p>
393. <p>As you can see, they missed far fewer votes prior to running for office. Graham, Rubio, and Cruz all missed around 9.5% of votes during this time. Paul at 3.5% and Sanders at 2.6% were close to the median across all senators during this time of 2.2%. Clinton, during the corresponding time period prior to the 2008 election, missed 1.4% of votes, which was right on the median for senators during that time. Similarly for Obama (0.8%). McCain missed 9.6%. Biden, again not shown, missed 10.5% of votes.</p>
394. <p>(The current candidates were eligible to vote in 342 votes during this time. The 2008 candidates were eligible to vote in 363 votes during their time period.)</p>
395. <h3 style="text-align:left;">Final Thoughts</h3>
396. <p>You might be tempted to ask, Which party is worse? While one party leads in both elections shown here, we&#8217;re sure that if we looked backwards in history a little further we&#8217;d find that both parties are equally bad at running for office and serving as a Member of Congress at the same time. (That is, two elections is not a large enough sample to say whether one party is worse than the other.)</p>
397. <p>(We didn&#8217;t look at the 2012 election because it was a bit different. With Obama running for reelection, there were no other Democratic candidates. And there were only a few Republican candidates that were sitting Members of Congress at the time. The eventual nominee, Mitt Romney, was not one of them.)</p>
398. <p><em>UPDATES: In the last paragraph I corrected the year of the last election to 2012 &#8212; of course not 2010. Ooops. On Oct. 28 I added a section about the candidates&#8217; votes prior to their run for office.</em></p>
399. ]]></content:encoded>
401. <wfw:commentRss>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/presidential-candidates-miss-votes/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
402. <slash:comments>9</slash:comments>
406. <media:content url="https://0.gravatar.com/avatar/350a5a39da7ce68a0e2ecac43c16b1c7096a37c0b324667bb8ca2eae74cb3c1c?s=96&#38;d=identicon&#38;r=G" medium="image">
407. <media:title type="html">govtrackus</media:title>
408. </media:content>
409.  
410. <media:content url="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled1.png" medium="image">
411. <media:title type="html">2016 Presidential Election Candidates</media:title>
412. </media:content>
413.  
414. <media:content url="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled.png" medium="image">
415. <media:title type="html">2008 Presidential Election Candidates</media:title>
416. </media:content>
417.  
418. <media:content url="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/untitled2.png" medium="image">
419. <media:title type="html">Missed Votes Prior to Running for President</media:title>
420. </media:content>
421. </item>
422. <item>
423. <title>No Speaker since 1933 was elected with more than one vote from the minority party</title>
424. <link>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/09/no-speaker-since-1933-was-elected-with-more-than-one-vote-from-the-minority-party/</link>
426. <dc:creator><![CDATA[GovTrack.us]]></dc:creator>
427. <pubDate>Fri, 09 Oct 2015 14:59:36 +0000</pubDate>
428. <category><![CDATA[Analysis]]></category>
429. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.govtrack.us/blog/?p=5404</guid>
430.  
431. <description><![CDATA[With the Republican party now selecting their nominee for the next Speaker of the House, there&#8217;s been some discussion of &#8230; <a class="more-link" href="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/09/no-speaker-since-1933-was-elected-with-more-than-one-vote-from-the-minority-party/">More</a>]]></description>
432. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>With the Republican party now selecting their nominee for the next Speaker of the House, there&#8217;s been some discussion of whether a moderate Republican candidate could secure enough Democratic votes to secure a win without the support of the conservative wing of the party. The data says that&#8217;s unlikely.</p>
433. <p><span style="line-height:1.5em;">Not since 1856 was a Speaker elected with a significant number of votes from multiple parties, when </span><a style="line-height:1.5em;" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_P._Banks">Nathaniel Banks</a><span style="line-height:1.5em;">, a Republican, won the speakership by three votes with the help of Democrats and the American party, according to the below data. Since 1933, no Speaker has been elected with more than one vote from the other party(s).</span></p>
434. <p>The table below shows every roll call vote to elect the Speaker of the House that I could find since 1841. The candidates for Speaker and vote tallies are indicated in each row. The column &#8220;Minority Party Votes for Winner&#8221; is a count of the votes the winner received from outside his or her party (more or less &#8212; see note at end). Not every year has a vote. That might be because the vote that year was not a roll call vote. It might have been a voice vote or other archaic form of a non-recorded vote. Or it might not be labeled as a Speaker vote in the underlying data correctly.</p>
435. <table class="table">
436. <thead>
437. <tr>
438. <th>Year</th>
439. <th>Candidates</th>
440. <th>Minority-Party Votes for Winner</th>
441. <th>Source</th>
442. </tr>
443. </thead>
444. <tbody><!-- Election of the Speaker --></p>
445. <tr>
446. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/114-2015/h2">2015</a></td>
447. <td>Boehner, 216; Pelosi, 164; Not Voting, 25; Webster (FL), 12; Gohmert, 3; Jordan, 2; Yoho, 2; Cooper, 1; Duncan (SC), 1; Hon. Rand Paul, 1; Hon. Jeff Sessions, 1; Lewis, 1; Gowdy, 1; McCarthy, 1; DeFazio, 1; Colin Powell, 1; Present, 1</td>
448. <td>0</td>
449. <td><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2015/roll002.xml">house.gov</a></td>
450. </tr>
451. <p><!-- Election of the Speaker --></p>
452. <tr>
453. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2013/h2">2013</a></td>
454. <td>Boehner, 220; Pelosi, 192; Not Voting, 6; Cantor, 3; Allen West, 2; Cooper, 2; Labrador, 1; Jordan, 1; Present, 1; David Walker, 1; Lewis, 1; Colin Powell, 1; Dingell, 1; Amash, 1</td>
455. <td>0</td>
456. <td><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll002.xml">house.gov</a></td>
457. </tr>
458. <p><!-- Election of the Speaker --></p>
459. <tr>
460. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/112-2011/h2">2011</a></td>
461. <td>Boehner, 241; Pelosi, 173; Shuler, 11; Lewis (GA), 2; Not Voting, 1; Costa, 1; Present, 1; Cooper, 1; Cardoza, 1; Kaptur, 1; Hoyer, 1</td>
462. <td>0</td>
463. <td><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll002.xml">house.gov</a></td>
464. </tr>
465. <p><!-- Election of the Speaker --></p>
466. <tr>
467. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/111-2009/h2">2009</a></td>
468. <td>Pelosi, 255; Boehner, 174; Not Voting, 5</td>
469. <td>1</td>
470. <td><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll002.xml">house.gov</a></td>
471. </tr>
472. <p><!-- Election of the Speaker --></p>
473. <tr>
474. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/110-2007/h2">2007</a></td>
475. <td>Pelosi, 233; Boehner, 202</td>
476. <td>0</td>
477. <td><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll002.xml">house.gov</a></td>
478. </tr>
479. <p><!-- Election of the Speaker --></p>
480. <tr>
481. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/109-2005/h2">2005</a></td>
482. <td>Hastert, 226; Pelosi, 199; Not Voting, 7; Present, 1; Murtha, 1</td>
483. <td>0</td>
484. <td><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll002.xml">house.gov</a></td>
485. </tr>
486. <p><!-- Election of the Speaker --></p>
487. <tr>
488. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/108-2003/h2">2003</a></td>
489. <td>Hastert, 227; Pelosi, 202; Present, 4; Not Voting, 1; Murtha, 1</td>
490. <td>0</td>
491. <td><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2003/roll002.xml">house.gov</a></td>
492. </tr>
493. <p><!-- Election of the Speaker --></p>
494. <tr>
495. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/106-1999/h2">1999</a></td>
496. <td>Hastert, 220; Gephardt, 205; Not Voting, 7; Present, 2</td>
497. <td>1</td>
498. <td><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1999/roll002.xml">house.gov</a></td>
499. </tr>
500. <p><!-- Election of the Speaker --></p>
501. <tr>
502. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/105-1997/h3">1997</a></td>
503. <td>Gingrich, 216; Gephardt, 205; Present, 6; Leach, 2; Michel, 1; Not Voting, 1; Walker, 1</td>
504. <td>0</td>
505. <td><a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1997/roll003.xml">house.gov</a></td>
506. </tr>
507. <p><!-- TO ELECT EITHER DEMOCRAT THOMAS O'NEILL OR REPUBLICAN ROBERT MICHEL TO BE THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. (O'NEILL ELECTED). --></p>
508. <tr>
509. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/98-1983/h1">1983</a></td>
510. <td>O&#8217;NEILL, 259; MICHEL, 155; Not Voting, 18; Unknown, 2</td>
511. <td>1</td>
512. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
513. </tr>
514. <p><!-- TO ELECT AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE EITHER THOMAS P. O'NEILL,JR. (D,MA) OR JOHN J. RHODES (R,AZ). --></p>
515. <tr>
516. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/95-1977/h1">1977</a></td>
517. <td>O&#8217;NEILL, 290; RHODES, 142; Not Voting, 2</td>
518. <td>0</td>
519. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
520. </tr>
521. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. --></p>
522. <tr>
523. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/94-1975/h1">1975</a></td>
524. <td>CARL ALBERT, DEM, 287; JOHN RHODES (R), 143; Unknown, 3; Not Voting, 2</td>
525. <td>1</td>
526. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
527. </tr>
528. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FOR THE 92ND CONGRESS. --></p>
529. <tr>
530. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/92-1971/h1">1971</a></td>
531. <td>ALBERT, 250; Unknown, 176; Not Voting, 2</td>
532. <td>0</td>
533. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
534. </tr>
535. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE FOR THE 91ST CONGRESS. --></p>
536. <tr>
537. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/91-1969/h1">1969</a></td>
538. <td>JOHN MC CORMACK (D), 241; Unknown, 187; Not Voting, 2</td>
539. <td>0</td>
540. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
541. </tr>
542. <p><!-- ELECTION OF SPEAKER OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES J.W. BYRNS (DEM.), B.H. SNELL (REP.), G.J. SCHNEIDER (PROG.), AND W.P. LAMBERTSON (REP.). --></p>
543. <tr>
544. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/74-1/h1">1935</a></td>
545. <td>BYRNS, 317; SNELL, 95; SCHNEIDER, 9; Unknown, 3; LAMBERTSON, 2</td>
546. <td>0</td>
547. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
548. </tr>
549. <p><!-- TO ELECT THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. --></p>
550. <tr>
551. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/73-1/h1">1933</a></td>
552. <td>RAINEY (DEM), 302; SNELL (REP), 110; KVALE(FL), 5</td>
553. <td>1</td>
554. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
555. </tr>
556. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. --></p>
557. <tr>
558. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/72-1/h1">1931</a></td>
559. <td>J.N. GARNER, 218; B.H. SNELL, 207; G.J. SCHNEIDER., 5; Unknown, 3</td>
560. <td>2</td>
561. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
562. </tr>
563. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER FOR THE 70TH HOUSE; NICHOLAS LONGWORTH (REP) VERSUS FINIS J. GARRETT (DEM.). --></p>
564. <tr>
565. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/70-1/h1">1927</a></td>
566. <td>LONGWORTH, 225; GARRETT, 187; Not Voting, 19; Unknown, 5</td>
567. <td>1</td>
568. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
569. </tr>
570. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. --></p>
571. <tr>
572. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/66-1/h1">1919</a></td>
573. <td>F.H. GILLETT, 228; CHAMP CLARK, 171; Not Voting, 6</td>
574. <td>0</td>
575. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
576. </tr>
577. <p><!-- TO ELECT THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE FOR THE 65TH CONGRESS; CHAMP CLARK (D-MO.), NOMINATED BY THOMAS D. SCHOLL (R- MINN.), 217 VOTES; JAMES R. MANN (R-ILL.), NOMINATED BY WILLIAM S. GREENE (R-MASS.), 205 VOTES: CHAMP CLARK WAS ELECTED SPEAKER. --></p>
578. <tr>
579. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/65-1/h1">1917</a></td>
580. <td>CLARK, 217; MANN, 205; OTHERS/PRESENT, 6</td>
581. <td>5</td>
582. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
583. </tr>
584. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. --></p>
585. <tr>
586. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/64-1/h1">1915</a></td>
587. <td>CHAMP CLARK (DEM.), 222; J. R. MANN (REP.), 195; Unknown, 5; Not Voting, 1</td>
588. <td>1</td>
589. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
590. </tr>
591. <p><!-- TO ELECT THE SPEAKER OF THE 60TH HOUSE. --></p>
592. <tr>
593. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/60-1/h3">1907</a></td>
594. <td>CANNON, J.G. (REP), 212; WILLIAMS, J.S. (DEM), 162; Not Voting, 14</td>
595. <td>1</td>
596. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
597. </tr>
598. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE FOR THE 59TH CONGRESS. --></p>
599. <tr>
600. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/59-1/h1">1905</a></td>
601. <td>J. S. WILLIAMS (D), 243; J. G. CANNON (R), 128; Not Voting, 15</td>
602. <td>0</td>
603. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
604. </tr>
605. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. --></p>
606. <tr>
607. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/58-1/h1">1903</a></td>
608. <td>J.G. CANNON, 197; J.S. WILLIAMS, 166; Not Voting, 22</td>
609. <td>4</td>
610. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
611. </tr>
612. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE FOR THE 57TH CONGRESS. --></p>
613. <tr>
614. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/57-1/h1">1901</a></td>
615. <td>HENDERSON (REP), 192; RICHARDSON (DEM), 150; Not Voting, 10; STARK, 1; CUMMING, 1</td>
616. <td>1</td>
617. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
618. </tr>
619. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. --></p>
620. <tr>
621. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/55-1/h1">1897</a></td>
622. <td>T.B. REED (R), 200; J.W. BAILEY (D), 114; J.C. BILL, 21; Not Voting, 19; F.G. NEWLANDS, 1</td>
623. <td>1</td>
624. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
625. </tr>
626. <p><!-- TO ELECT THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF THE 53RD CONGRESS. --></p>
627. <tr>
628. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/53-1/h1">1893</a></td>
629. <td>C. F. CRISP, 212; T. B. REED, 121; J. SIMPSON, 9</td>
630. <td>3</td>
631. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
632. </tr>
633. <p><!-- TO ELECT THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF THE 52ND CONGRESS. --></p>
634. <tr>
635. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/51-1/h1">1889</a></td>
636. <td>T.B. REED, 166; J.G. CARLISLE, 154; Unknown, 1</td>
637. <td>0</td>
638. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
639. </tr>
640. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER FROM THE FOLLOWING CANDIDATES, JOHN G. CARLISLE (DEM), THOMAS B. REED (REP), AND CHARLES N. BRUMM (RG). JOHN G. CARLISLE HAVING RECEIVED 163 VOTES WAS DULY ELECTED SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. --></p>
641. <tr>
642. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/50-1/h1">1887</a></td>
643. <td>CARLISLE, 163; REED, 147; Not Voting, 13; Unknown, 2</td>
644. <td>2</td>
645. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
646. </tr>
647. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE. --></p>
648. <tr>
649. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/49-1/h1">1885</a></td>
650. <td>CARLISLE, 178; KEIFER, 138; Not Voting, 9</td>
651. <td>2</td>
652. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
653. </tr>
654. <p><!-- ELECTION OF SPEAKER OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. --></p>
655. <tr>
656. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/48-1/h1">1883</a></td>
657. <td>CARLISLE, 187; KEIFER, 114; Not Voting, 15; ROBINSON, 2; WADSWORTH, 1; LACEY, 1; WISE, 1</td>
658. <td>3</td>
659. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
660. </tr>
661. <p><!-- ELECTION OF SPEAKER OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WARREN KEIFER (REP.), SAMUEL J. RANDALL (DEM.) AND NICOLAS FORD (L.R.). (P. 8-1). --></p>
662. <tr>
663. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/47-1/h1">1881</a></td>
664. <td>KEIFER, 148; RANDALL, 129; FORD, 8</td>
665. <td>3</td>
666. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
667. </tr>
668. <p><!-- ELECTION OF SPEAKER OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, S.J. RANDALL (DEM.) VERSUS J.A. GARFIELD, (REP.). MINOR CANDIDATES WERE H.B. WRIGHT (DEM.) AND W.D. KELLY (REP.), BOTH OF PENNSYLVANIA. --></p>
669. <tr>
670. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/46-1/h1">1879</a></td>
671. <td>RANDALL, 144; GARFIELD, 125; WRIGHT, 13; Not Voting, 1</td>
672. <td>7</td>
673. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
674. </tr>
675. <p><!-- ELECTION OF SPEAKER OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SAMUEL J. RANDALL (DEM.) AND JAMES A. GARFIELD (REP.). --></p>
676. <tr>
677. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/45-1/h1">1877</a></td>
678. <td>RANDALL, 149; GARFIELD, 132</td>
679. <td>2</td>
680. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
681. </tr>
682. <p><!-- ELECTION OF SPEAKER OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, J.G. BLAINE (REP.), VERSUS G.W. MORGON (DEM.). --></p>
683. <tr>
684. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/42-1/h1">1871</a></td>
685. <td>BLAINE, 126; MORGAN, 93; Not Voting, 2</td>
686. <td>2</td>
687. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
688. </tr>
689. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FOR THE 40TH CONGRESS. --></p>
690. <tr>
691. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/40-1/h1">1867</a></td>
692. <td>COLFAX (WHIG), 127; MARSHALL (DEMOCRAT), 30</td>
693. <td>4</td>
694. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
695. </tr>
696. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. --></p>
697. <tr>
698. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/39-1/h1">1865</a></td>
699. <td>COLFAX (REPUBLICAN), 129; Unknown, 35; Not Voting, 14</td>
700. <td>7</td>
701. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
702. </tr>
703. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER. --></p>
704. <tr>
705. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/34-1/h105">1856</a></td>
706. <td>NATHANIAL BANKS, 103; W. AIKEN, 100; Not Voting, 18; LEWIS CAMPBELL, 6; Unknown, 5</td>
707. <td>22</td>
708. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
709. </tr>
710. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER OF THE 33RD HOUSE. --></p>
711. <tr>
712. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/33-1/h1">1853</a></td>
713. <td>L. BOYD (DEM), 143; JOS. CHANDLER (WHIG), 35; Unknown, 21; Not Voting, 17; L. CAMPBELL, (WHIG), 11; P. ERVING (WHIG), 7</td>
714. <td>3</td>
715. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
716. </tr>
717. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER. --></p>
718. <tr>
719. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/30-1/h3">1847</a></td>
720. <td>ROBERT WINTHROP, 110; LINN BOYD, 64; ALL OTHERS, 25; MC CLELLAND, 14; Not Voting, 11; MC CLERNAND, 4</td>
721. <td>1</td>
722. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
723. </tr>
724. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER FOR THE 29TH HOUSE, JOHN DAVIS (DEM), VERSUS S. VENTON, (WHIG). --></p>
725. <tr>
726. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/29-1/h1">1845</a></td>
727. <td>DAVIS, 120; VINTON, 70; OTHER CANDIDATES, 19; Not Voting, 11</td>
728. <td>0</td>
729. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
730. </tr>
731. <p><!-- TO ELECT A SPEAKER. --></p>
732. <tr>
733. <td><a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/27-1/h2">1841</a></td>
734. <td>JOHN WHITE, 121; JOHN W. JONES, 84; Not Voting, 20; HENRY A. WISE, 8; JOSEPH LAWRENCE, 5; WILLIAM C. JOHNSON, 2; Unknown, 1</td>
735. <td>0</td>
736. <td><a href="http://voteview.com/">VoteView.com</a></td>
737. </tr>
738. </tbody>
739. </table>
740. <h3>Notes</h3>
741. <p>From 1990 to the present, votes are from the House Clerk&#8217;s website. Prior to that, vote data is from <a href="http://voteview.org/">Rosenthal &amp; Poole’s United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1990, Carnegie Mellon University</a>. Some of the historical roll call vote data were first collected &amp; entered many decades ago and suffers from significant data coding errors. I am reasonably sure some of the candidate tally totals are incorrect.</p>
742. <p>To compute the minority party votes, I first assumed the winner was the candidate that received the most number of votes. Then I looked at the party totals for that candidate and assumed the party that made up the most number of votes for that candidate is the majority party (because I don&#8217;t know the actual party of the candidate). The minority party votes is the sum of those party totals excluding the majority party.</p>
743. ]]></content:encoded>
748. <media:content url="https://0.gravatar.com/avatar/350a5a39da7ce68a0e2ecac43c16b1c7096a37c0b324667bb8ca2eae74cb3c1c?s=96&#38;d=identicon&#38;r=G" medium="image">
749. <media:title type="html">govtrackus</media:title>
750. </media:content>
751. </item>
752. <item>
753. <title>GovTrack Updates for Spring/Summer 2015</title>
754. <link>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/govtrack-updates-for-spring-summer-2015/</link>
756. <dc:creator><![CDATA[GovTrack.us]]></dc:creator>
757. <pubDate>Sun, 04 Oct 2015 15:25:23 +0000</pubDate>
758. <category><![CDATA[Site News]]></category>
759. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.govtrack.us/blog/?p=5382</guid>
760.  
761. <description><![CDATA[Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s new on GovTrack this Spring &#38; Summer: GovTrack Insider After running a summer-long experiment with intern Ben, we &#8230; <a class="more-link" href="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/govtrack-updates-for-spring-summer-2015/">More</a>]]></description>
762. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s new on GovTrack this Spring &amp; Summer:</p>
763. <h3>GovTrack Insider</h3>
764. <p>After running a summer-long experiment with intern Ben, we successfully funded the launch of <a href="https://medium.com/govtrack-insider">GovTrack Insider</a>, where we&#8217;ll be posting in-depth articles on bills in Congress and major Congressional activity. GovTrack Insider is made possible by the generous backers of <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1872382405/govtrack-insider">our Kickstarter campaign</a> that ended in early September, which raised more than $35,000! Thank you, backers!</p>
765. <p>We&#8217;ve hired four part-time reporters to help us all track Congress, and they began just last week.</p>
766. <p>Sign up to <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/events/govtrack-insider">get our new posts by email</a>, or head to the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/">redesigned GovTrack homepage</a> where you&#8217;ll see all of our latest posts.</p>
767. <p><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5394" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/govtrack-updates-for-spring-summer-2015/img/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img.png" data-orig-size="532,547" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="GovTrack Insider" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img.png?w=292" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img.png?w=532" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5394" alt="GovTrack Insider" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img.png?w=1140"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img.png 532w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img.png?w=146&amp;h=150 146w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img.png?w=292&amp;h=300 292w" sizes="(max-width: 532px) 100vw, 532px" /></a></p>
768. <p>&nbsp;</p>
769. <h3>New Bill Action History</h3>
770. <p>For the last year and a half we&#8217;ve been showing major bill events in a horizontal timeline with big icons representing the major steps. The new layout is vertical and has clearer links to related information such as vote details.</p>
771. <p><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img1.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5395" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/govtrack-updates-for-spring-summer-2015/img-2/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img1.png" data-orig-size="789,509" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="New Bill History Timeline" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img1.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img1.png?w=789" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5395" alt="New Bill History Timeline" src="https://www.govtrack.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/img1-300x193.png" width="500" height="322" /></a></p>
772. <p>The new timeline also includes:</p>
773. <ul>
774. <li>other relevant actions that weren&#8217;t included before, including major events on previous incarnations of the bill in previous Congresses</li>
775. <li>a clearer display of events that are occurring on other current bills, including rules and companion bills (identical bills in the other chamber)</li>
776. <li>new links to the text of a bill as it was after each major action and to comparison views that let you see how the text changed between major actions, since such changes can be substantial</li>
777. </ul>
778. <h3>Roll Call Votes</h3>
779. <p>Thanks to the work of volunteer Sergei Shevlyagin, <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes">votes</a> can now be sorted by most supported, most opposed, and widest/narrowest margin.</p>
780. <p><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img2.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5398" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/govtrack-updates-for-spring-summer-2015/img-3/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img2.png" data-orig-size="326,167" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="img" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img2.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img2.png?w=326" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5398" alt="img" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img2.png?w=1140"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img2.png 326w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img2.png?w=150&amp;h=77 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img2.png?w=300&amp;h=154 300w" sizes="(max-width: 326px) 100vw, 326px" /></a></p>
781. <p>The list of votes now also displays vote summaries when we&#8217;ve written them.</p>
782. <p>On the vote details page, you&#8217;ll now also see:</p>
783. <ul>
784. <li>A new statistical analysis called Statistically Notable Votes, which picks out Members of Congress who voted in a statistically unpredictable way.</li>
785. <li>Asterisks which denote voters that are likely to have voted strategically rather than by their actual beliefs, in order to help explain otherwise inexplicable actions. This currently includes when a party leader votes against their party in order to vote yes, which is a procedural method to gain the right to call for a second vote. The asterisk links to an explanation of what we think occurred.</li>
786. <li>Votes on amendments now link to Congress.gov&#8217;s amendment details (since we don&#8217;t have amendment details here) and to the sponsor&#8217;s page on GovTrack.</li>
787. <li>The layout of the page has been updated to be a little clearer.</li>
788. </ul>
789. <p>Two major issues were also fixed:</p>
790. <p>I have to apologize for messing up vote counts in some historical (prior to 1999) votes. From October 2014 through July 2015, we displayed incorrect vote totals for some historical votes. Although the total correctly reflected the announced positions of Members of Congress, the totals incorrectly included “paired” votes, which is when two Members of Congress, one planning to vote in favor and the other against, plan ahead of time to both abstain. The totals now omit paired votes and so now more closely reflect the official totals.</p>
791. <p>Relatedly, in historical votes, when a Member of Congress changed party mid-session they may have been displayed with the wrong party in the vote and the party totals for the vote may have been incorrect.  In so far as we have the data on mid-session party changes, these issues have now been fixed.</p>
792. <h3 id="admin_panel">Improvements to Bill Search</h3>
793. <p>When using our <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse">advanced search</a> to search bill titles and text by keywords, bills that match in their title are now listed higher up in search results. That should make it easier to find the bills you&#8217;re looking for.</p>
794. <p>The advanced search also has a new filter option for current status: &#8220;Enacted — Including via Companion Bills.&#8221; This is helpful when you&#8217;re looking at bills by a particular sponsor and want to know what bills that sponsor has enacted. Since bills are often introduced in identical pairs, one in the Senate and one in the House, but at most one can be enacted, a sponsor&#8217;s bill may have been &#8220;enacted&#8221; via a different bill that they are not officially the sponsor of. This filter includes in search results not only bills that were themselves enacted but also when they had a so-called companion bill that was enacted.</p>
795. <p>The Library of Congress has updated their historical data on bills to apply current top-level subject area terms to historical bills, and we&#8217;ve updated our database with that information. That means that when using <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/subjects/animals/5840#congress=__ALL__">our subject term pages</a> to search for historical bills, you can see bills by subject back to the 93rd Congress (1973) rather than only back to the 111th Congress (2009).</p>
796. <h3>Legislator Subject Areas</h3>
797. <p>On pages for Members of Congress, we now show the top subject areas that their sponsored bills fall into so you can get an idea of the sorts of bills your representative is working on:</p>
798. <p><a href="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img3.png"><img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="5401" data-permalink="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/10/04/govtrack-updates-for-spring-summer-2015/img-4/" data-orig-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img3.png" data-orig-size="511,241" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}" data-image-title="Legislator Subject Areas" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img3.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img3.png?w=511" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5401" alt="Legislator Subject Areas" src="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img3.png?w=1140"   srcset="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img3.png 511w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img3.png?w=150&amp;h=71 150w, https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img3.png?w=300&amp;h=141 300w" sizes="(max-width: 511px) 100vw, 511px" /></a></p>
799. <h3><span style="line-height:1.5em;">Other Changes</span></h3>
800. <ul>
801. <li>When tracking bills, when there&#8217;s a new cosponsor, the event details in your email update or RSS feed shows the new total number of cosponsors and the breakdown by party.</li>
802. <li>The bill prognosis factors were tweaked a little bit to make it easier to understand the &#8220;show factors&#8221; details.</li>
803. <li>The site loads a little faster now.</li>
804. <li>If you have an account on GovTrack, the email/password update form works better now.</li>
805. <li>And as previously announced, we <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/blog/2015/08/11/discontinuing-state-level-legislative-tracking/">discontinued state-level legislative tracking</a>.</li>
806. </ul>
807. <p>&nbsp;</p>
808. ]]></content:encoded>
813. <media:content url="https://0.gravatar.com/avatar/350a5a39da7ce68a0e2ecac43c16b1c7096a37c0b324667bb8ca2eae74cb3c1c?s=96&#38;d=identicon&#38;r=G" medium="image">
814. <media:title type="html">govtrackus</media:title>
815. </media:content>
816.  
817. <media:content url="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img.png" medium="image">
818. <media:title type="html">GovTrack Insider</media:title>
819. </media:content>
820.  
821. <media:content url="https://www.govtrack.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/img1-300x193.png" medium="image">
822. <media:title type="html">New Bill History Timeline</media:title>
823. </media:content>
824.  
825. <media:content url="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img2.png" medium="image">
826. <media:title type="html">img</media:title>
827. </media:content>
828.  
829. <media:content url="https://govtracknews.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/img3.png" medium="image">
830. <media:title type="html">Legislator Subject Areas</media:title>
831. </media:content>
832. </item>
833. <item>
834. <title>Users report GovTrack makes them more confident about approaching government</title>
835. <link>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/users-report-govtrack-makes-them-more-confident-about-approaching-government/</link>
837. <dc:creator><![CDATA[GovTrack.us]]></dc:creator>
838. <pubDate>Fri, 28 Aug 2015 18:49:38 +0000</pubDate>
839. <category><![CDATA[Site News]]></category>
840. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.govtrack.us/blog/?p=5385</guid>
841.  
842. <description><![CDATA[This summer GovTrack ran a survey of its users to learn more about the site&#8217;s effectiveness. The survey, run in &#8230; <a class="more-link" href="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/users-report-govtrack-makes-them-more-confident-about-approaching-government/">More</a>]]></description>
843. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This summer GovTrack ran a survey of its users to learn more about the site&#8217;s effectiveness. The survey, run in collaboration with mySociety, revealed something pretty interesting:</p>
844. <p><strong>As peope use GovTrack more, they report GovTrack giving them greater confidence when approaching government.</strong></p>
845. <p>Here are some of the details.</p>
846. <h2>Who uses GovTrack?</h2>
847. <p>We asked users about themselves. Who are they?</p>
848. <table class="table">
849. <tbody>
850. <tr>
851. <td>Interested citizens</td>
852. <td>71%</td>
853. </tr>
854. <tr>
855. <td>Students</td>
856. <td>9%*</td>
857. </tr>
858. <tr>
859. <td>Non-profit advocates</td>
860. <td>7%</td>
861. </tr>
862. <tr>
863. <td>Government employees<br />
864. (except congressional staff)</td>
865. <td>6%</td>
866. </tr>
867. <tr>
868. <td>No response</td>
869. <td>2%</td>
870. </tr>
871. <tr>
872. <td>Journalists</td>
873. <td>2%</td>
874. </tr>
875. <tr>
876. <td>Legislative affairs professionals (for-profit)</td>
877. <td>2%</td>
878. </tr>
879. <tr>
880. <td>Congressional staff</td>
881. <td>0%**</td>
882. </tr>
883. </tbody>
884. </table>
885. <p>* The survey was taken during the summer, so the number of students during most of the year is likely underestimated.</p>
886. <p>** Although &lt;1% of respondents identified as Congressional staff , we know from separate analytics that Congressional staff account for about 3% of site traffic when Congress is in session.</p>
887. <h2>Did you learn something about how Congress works?</h2>
888. <p>We asked users if they learned something about how Congress works during their current session of the site. Responses varied widely by segment. Here it is for selected segments:</p>
889. <table class="table">
890. <tbody>
891. <tr>
892. <th>Segment</th>
893. <th>Learned something</th>
894. </tr>
895. <tr>
896. <td>First-time interested citizens</td>
897. <td>43%</td>
898. </tr>
899. <tr>
900. <td>Returning-user interested citizens</td>
901. <td>50%</td>
902. </tr>
903. <tr>
904. <td>Students</td>
905. <td>58%</td>
906. </tr>
907. <tr>
908. <td>Non-profit advocates</td>
909. <td>45%</td>
910. </tr>
911. </tbody>
912. </table>
913. <p>&nbsp;</p>
914. <p>This was disappointing.  One of my primary goals is to teach America about how Congress actually works, and I&#8217;m not sure whether 50% indicates if I&#8217;m succeeding at that.</p>
915. <h2>Has using GovTrack.us made you more confident about approaching government?</h2>
916. <p><span style="line-height:1.5em;">We asked users:</span></p>
917. <blockquote><p>Has using GovTrack.us made you more confident about approaching public/political individuals and organizations directly for information, to make a complaint or for any other reason?</p></blockquote>
918. <p>The results indicate that the more a user uses GovTrack, the more confident they become. First-time users were evenly split between yes (more confident) and no (no difference). But as GovTrack use goes up, so too does the user&#8217;s belief that GovTrack has made them more confident.</p>
919. <table class="table">
920. <tbody>
921. <tr>
922. <th>How regularly do you visit GovTrack?</th>
923. <th>GovTrack has made you more confident</th>
924. <th>N</th>
925. </tr>
926. <tr>
927. <td>This is my first visit</td>
928. <td>51%</td>
929. <td>322</td>
930. </tr>
931. <tr>
932. <td>Less than once a month</td>
933. <td>59%</td>
934. <td>112</td>
935. </tr>
936. <tr>
937. <td>Between once a month and once a week</td>
938. <td>70%</td>
939. <td>126</td>
940. </tr>
941. <tr>
942. <td>Between once a week and once a day</td>
943. <td>73%</td>
944. <td>112</td>
945. </tr>
946. <tr>
947. <td>More than once a day</td>
948. <td>78%</td>
949. <td>28</td>
950. </tr>
951. </tbody>
952. </table>
953. <p>Of course, this was a survey at a single point in time. The results don&#8217;t show that repeated use makes one more confident. But the repeat users <em>believe</em> GovTrack had a greater impact on their confidence, and that&#8217;s very suggestive.</p>
954. <p>Respondents could also choose GovTrack made them &#8220;less confident&#8221; but almost no one did.</p>
955. <h2>Have you achieved what you set out to do on this website today?</h2>
956. <p>We asked users why they came to GovTrack and whether they found what they were looking for:</p>
957. <table class="table">
958. <tbody>
959. <tr>
960. <th>Why they came</th>
961. <th>Fully achieved their goal</th>
962. <th>Partially achieved their goal</th>
963. <th>N</th>
964. </tr>
965. <tr>
966. <td>To find information about my representatives</td>
967. <td>50%</td>
968. <td>37%</td>
969. <td>268</td>
970. </tr>
971. <tr>
972. <td>To contact my Member of Congress</td>
973. <td>44%</td>
974. <td>36%</td>
975. <td>107</td>
976. </tr>
977. <tr>
978. <td>To find information about a particular issue</td>
979. <td>48%</td>
980. <td>40%</td>
981. <td>356</td>
982. </tr>
983. <tr>
984. <td>Other/No reason</td>
985. <td>39%</td>
986. <td>31%</td>
987. <td>184</td>
988. </tr>
989. </tbody>
990. </table>
991. <p>Overall, 89% of users are partially or fully achieving their goal. That&#8217;s great. One category stands out as not well served, though:</p>
992. <p>We did poorest achieving the goals of those who wanted to contact their Members of Congress. That makes sense since we&#8217;ve never focused on that and only offer one method: calling Congress about a bill. We don&#8217;t offer any other forms of contacting Congress. Many people are looking for this, but fortunately it was the smallest category of why users were coming to the site (and less than other/no reason).</p>
993. <h2>About the survey</h2>
994. <p>We surveyed a random sample of 1,231 GovTrack users for a one month period beginning on June 19, 2015. Users spent on average 50 seconds on the site before being asked to take part in the survey. Thanks to mySociety for partnering on this. We&#8217;ll see more interesting results from mySociety later in the year.</p>
995. ]]></content:encoded>
1000. <media:content url="https://0.gravatar.com/avatar/350a5a39da7ce68a0e2ecac43c16b1c7096a37c0b324667bb8ca2eae74cb3c1c?s=96&#38;d=identicon&#38;r=G" medium="image">
1001. <media:title type="html">govtrackus</media:title>
1002. </media:content>
1003. </item>
1004. <item>
1005. <title>Discontinuing state-level legislative tracking</title>
1006. <link>https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/08/11/discontinuing-state-level-legislative-tracking/</link>
1008. <dc:creator><![CDATA[GovTrack.us]]></dc:creator>
1009. <pubDate>Tue, 11 Aug 2015 12:43:18 +0000</pubDate>
1010. <category><![CDATA[Site News]]></category>
1011. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.govtrack.us/blog/?p=5380</guid>
1012.  
1013. <description><![CDATA[Today I&#8217;m turning the lights off on GovTrack&#8217;s state-level legislative tracking pages. I added state-level legislative tracking in 2012, through a &#8230; <a class="more-link" href="https://govtracknews.wordpress.com/2015/08/11/discontinuing-state-level-legislative-tracking/">More</a>]]></description>
1014. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Today I&#8217;m turning the lights off on GovTrack&#8217;s state-level legislative tracking pages.</p>
1015. <p>I <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/blog/2012/06/19/welcoming-the-50-states-to-govtrack/">added state-level legislative tracking in 2012</a>, through a partnership with <a href="http://www.billtrack50.com/">LegiNation, Inc.</a> and <a href="http://www.legiscan.com/">LegiScan, Inc.</a>, with some additional data from <a href="http://openstates.org/">Open States</a>. This meant you could get email updates on bills going through your state legislature, besides bills in the U.S. Congress.</p>
1016. <p>In practice, however, I wasn&#8217;t able to dedicate enough time to this aspect of the site to bring it to a level of quality that I was comfortable with. In short, it wasn&#8217;t working. These pages weren&#8217;t getting much use either, accounting for about 1% of site traffic.</p>
1017. <p>There are more than 100 state-level legislative bodies: Two in every state except Nebraska, Nebraska&#8217;s unicameral legislature, the Council of the District of Columbia, and governing bodies in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories. Each of these bodies has a different legislative process, and so the level of effort to make good legislative tracking for 100+ legislative bodies was far more than we could tackle here.</p>
1018. <p>Discontinuing the state-level pages will free up some time for us to focus more on what we do best.</p>
1019. <p>If you were a user of the state-level pages on GovTrack, I&#8217;d recommend taking a look at <a href="http://www.billtrack50.com/">LegiNation</a>, <a href="http://www.legiscan.com/">LegiScan</a>, and <a href="http://openstates.org/">Open States</a>.</p>
1020. <p>&nbsp;</p>
1021. ]]></content:encoded>
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1027. <media:title type="html">govtrackus</media:title>
1028. </media:content>
1029. </item>
1030. </channel>
1031. </rss>
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