1.9: Decisions and Votes
Other Information:
When a motion is pending, a body such as the House, the Senate, or a committee will make a decision on it, only sometimes
using votes. These decisions are crucial moments in the legislative process, which should be published as data. Like motions,
many decisions are not yet published usefully. Decisions made without a vote in the House or Senate are published in text
form as part of the Congressional Record, but they are not published as data, so they remain opaque to the Internet. Many,
many decisions come in the form of voice votes, unanimous consents, and so on. Voting puts members of Congress on record about
where they stand. And happily, vote information is in pretty good shape. Each chamber publishes data about votes, meaning
authority is well handled. Vote data are available and timely. Both the House30 and Senate31 produce vote information. The
latter also publishes roll call tables in XML, which is useful for computer-aided oversight. Overall, voting data are pretty
well handled. But the omission of voice votes and unanimous consents drags the grade down and will drag it down further as
the quality of data publication in other areas rises.
Stakeholder(s):
Indicator(s):
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