Template:Free THOMAS Whip Count

This page is an OpenCongress community project. We are seeking to get each member of the House and Senate Legislative Appropriations Subcommittee on-record with their position on opening up access to data about Congress. Opening up bulk access to congressional data (the the Library's of Congress' THOMAS database) would would empower web developers to build powerful apps for improving the democratic process and fighting corruption, and it's something Congress could do quickly and cheaply. (More info about the campaign on the blogs of the Sunlight Foundation and OpenCongress. See also the wiki's extensive article on THOMAS.)

This is known as "whipping the vote" in DC-speak. By forcing votes out into the open, the public has a greater opportunity to give their members of Congress feedback before the vote.

You can help by selecting a member of Congress below and contacting them by phone, email (via OpenCongress' Contact Congress feature), Facebook or Twitter. When calling on the phone, be sure to identify yourself as a constituent, and give your mailing address for verification. Please be polite, and ask the member's staff what their boss' position is on whether "Congress should publish THOMAS information in bulk." If they indicate their position, use the key below to categorize the answer. If they don't, urge them to vote "yea."

If someone has already recorded the member's position, contact them again! The more calls/emails/tweets/posts they get, the more they'll pay attention. It doesn't even need to be your representative or senator - this is a national issue.
 * Tips on how to contact Congress on "free THOMAS"

 [ edit whip count with form ] 

Positions of committee members

Want this data? All information is open-source and free (as in beer and speech). Most data is available via API, RDF, CSV or other methods. See details or [mailto:conor@opencongress.org email us].