NTVN: Jason, good call their Capitol Watch web site is a first.
Capitol Watch: capitolwatch.com
As a politically minded person I was not aware of this gem of a web site.
Having called the office of my congressman, Neil Abercrombie, just two weeks ago to ask if they knew of such a site (they did not).
Yes, I really would like to Capitol Watch! They voted themselves a nice pay raise today the site (AP news) says! It passed with a nice majority (your money) I must say!
You can get the days list of bills, resolutions etc. and jump in as deep as you need. There is a summary on the home page, passed or defeated, vote totals on each side and links for more coverage. There are lots of links. In depth for each bill find: exactly how a bill made it to US law or eventually got defeated. Committees subcommittees, amendments, bill cosponsors full text on a lot stuff it goes on and on. Archives of previous bill and votes extend a month back. Plenty of time to look up an important issue that concerns you.
On the same page is a link to "subjects". Various classes of legislature currently in debate or settled recently, reside there. Under our love hate relationship subject "TAXATION" I found this jewel:
H.J.RES.45
SPONSOR: Rep Johnson, Sam (introduced 04/14/99)
Jump to: Titles, Status, Committees, Amendments, Cosponsors, Summary
TITLE(S):
OFFICIAL TITLE AS INTRODUCED:
A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to abolish the Federal
income tax.
For Real!
Go Rep. Johnson who ever you are!
How did your representatives from the U.S. Senate or Congress vote on a particular bill? Click on "legislative status" under the bill title then go to "record vote" or "roll number" and all the votes are recorded there. That is fantastic! Why? I do not know any other site that does this, and if you really want to know, well, there it is, no questions asked, no phone calls made, no letters mailed.
Mostly, I will just check and read that political (federal) headline news page. It gives a title, summary and full story from Associated Press reporters.
What is so special about that? It could take fifteen minutes to search the New York Times web pages to get all those stories from that day, the links to the various stories fit on half a page.
NY Times links "dissolve" every night, these remain for a month.
I just did a Yahoo category search under US government, politics, news and media and I am convinced that nothing like this free daily, "capital watch.com" exists on the web.
Investment "capital" for web ventures usually go to the people that got there first. If this is not a first I would like to know another site that does all this. Roll Call, Slate, New Republic and all your big city free web dailies are great but they are not set up to find this type of stuff, quickly and stripped down. My newspaper rarely tells us how are representatives voted unless the issue debated is controversial.
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