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        <title>About GovTrack.us - For Partners</title>

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    <div class="outer-container" style="background-image: url('static/img/capitol-winer-blurry.jpeg'); min-height: 500px">
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            <h1>GovTrack.us</h1>
            <p class="deck">Tracking the United States Congress.</p>
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    </div>

    <div class="outer-container" style="background-color: #277;">
        <div class="container">
            <p>Goals:</p>

            <ul style="font-size: 125%; margin-bottom: 60px">
                <li>Teach America how Congress actually works</li>
                <li>Make everyone a better advocate for their issues</li>
                <li>Use technology to level the playing field</li>
            </ul>

            <h2>Key Facts</h2>

            <hr>
            
            <dl class="dl-horizontal">
                <dt>Launched In</dt>
                <dd>2004</dd>

                <dt>Reach</dt>
                <dd>10M+ individuals yearly</dd>

                <!--<dt>Page Views</dt>
                <dd>65,000/day</dd>

                <dt>User Accounts</dt>
                <dd>367,038</dd>-->

                <dt>Operating Budget</dt>
                <dd>~$80,000/year</dd>

                <dt>Founder</dt>
                <dd>Joshua Tauberer, Ph.D.</dd>
            </dl>

            <hr>
            <p class="note">Figures as of August 2015.</p>
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            <h2>Who uses GovTrack?</h2>
            <div class="row">
                <div class="col-md-4">
                    <h3>Concerned Citizen</h3>
                    <p>70%</p>
                    <ul>
                        <li>Subscribes to email updates about bills.</li>
                        <li>Learns how the sausage is really made.</li>
                    </ul>
                </div>
                <div class="col-md-4">
                    <h3>Journalist</h3>
                    <p>2% (high impact)</p>
                    <ul>
                        <li>Fact-checks politicians.</li>
                        <li>Creates data analysis/vizualizations.</li>
                    </ul>
                </div>
                <div class="col-md-4">
                    <h3>Nonprofit/Advocate</h3>
                    <p>7%</p>
                    <ul>
                        <li>Tracks/researches legislation in issue area.</li>
                        <li>Can&rsquo;t afford professional legislative services.</li>
                    </ul>
                </div>
                <div class="clearfix visible-md visible-lg"></div>
                <div class="col-md-3">
                    <h3>Student/Teacher</h3>
                    <p>10%</p>
                    <ul>
                        <li>Solving class assignments.</li>
                        <li>Teaches civics through real-world examples.</li>
                    </ul>
                </div>
                <div class="col-md-3">
                    <h3>Legislative Affairs</h3>
                    <p>8%</p>
                    <ul>
                    	<li>(Professionals at corporations and government agencies.)</li>
                        <li>Track legislation relevant to their industry/agency w/ email update alerts.</li>
                    </ul>
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                <div class="col-md-3">
                    <h3>Congressional Staff</h3>
                    <p>3%</p>
                    <ul>
                        <li>GovTrack is incorporated into House Democrats&rsquo; caucus website.</li>
                        <li>Library of Congress staff imports from data repository.</li>
                    </ul>
                </div>
                <div class="col-md-3">
                    <h3>Software Developers</h3>
                    <p>hundreds of apps</p>
                    <ul>
                        <li>Reuse GovTrack&rsquo;s open data to build other civic engagement apps.</li>
                    </ul>
                </div>
            </div>
            <p class="note">Based on a 2015 user survey.</p>
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    </div>

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                        <h2>The official record is...</h2>

                        <h3>Confusing</h3>
                        <p>What&rsquo;s a &ldquo;Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Motion to Concur in the House Amendment to the Senate Amendment&rdquo;?</p>

                        <h3>Misleading</h3>
                        <p>Senate.gov says this vote is about the retirement plans of federal law enforcement officers. <strong>IT WASN&rsquo;T.</strong> It was a key vote on executive powers related to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.</p>
                        
                        <h3>Static</h3>
                        <p>Official sources can&rsquo;t analyze their own data to reveal patterns, like who&rsquo;s missed the most votes, nor in many cases would we want them to. That&rsquo;s the job of the public and journalists.</p>
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                        <h2>On GovTrack...</h2>

                        <h3>Legislative process is explained</h3>
                        <p>&ldquo;This vote was a vote on cloture, meaning to preclude a filibuster. This successful vote paves the way for...&rdquo;</p>

                        <div style="padding: 2em 1em 1em 1em">
                            <center style="font-size: 90%; margin-bottom: .5em;">How we say a bill became a law...</center>
                            <img src="static/img/legislative-process-chart.jpeg" class="img-responsive"/>
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                        <h3>Political context is revealed</h3>
                        <p>&ldquo;The TPA initially passed the House 219-to-211. As in the Senate, the House vote was predominantly along party lines, with Republicans supporting the President’s trade deal.&rdquo;</p>

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            <h1>Operations</h1>
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            <h3>Legislative status</h2>

            <p>Data collection is entirely automated by scraping THOMAS.gov, Senate.gov, House.gov, and other official websites.</p>
            
            <h3>&ldquo;GovTrack Insider&rdquo; (bill summaries &amp; analysis)</h3>

            <p>Small team (1 FTE) researches bills and upcoming congressionl actions.</p>

            <h3>Other activities</h3>

            <p>Open data provided to dozens of other apps and websites.</p>
            <p>Custom data requests and analysis for the press.</p>

            <h3>Revenue</h3>

            <p>Advertising.</p>
            <p>Kickstarter for GovTrack Insider (September 2015).</p>
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            <h1>Milestones</h1>
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            <h2>Our Firsts</h2>

            <hr>
            
            <h3>First to offer <u>free email updates for federal legislative tracking</u> (2004).</h3>
            <h3>First to publish <u>comprehensive open data</u> about Congress (2005).</h3>
            <h3>First to use <u>Google Maps to show street-level congressional district outlines</u> (2006).</h3>
            <h3>First to <u>&ldquo;diff&rdquo; bill text</u>, to show changes to bills over time (2007)</h3>
            <h3>First to publish <u>voting records from 1789-present</u> (2010).</h3>
            <h3>First to apply <u>Google&rsquo;s PageRank algorithm to rank politicians</u> (2010).</h3>
            <h3>First to <u>predict if a bill will become a law</u> (2012).</h3>
            <h3>First to offer <u>free federal + 50-state legislative tracking</u> (2012<span style="color: #EEA; font-size: 80%">; discontinued</span>).</h3>
            <h3>First to offer a free <u>calendar of upcoming committee hearings</u> (2014).</h3>
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            <h2>Spawned an Open Data Ecosystem</h2>

            <p style="margin-top: 1em">What happened because of GovTrack?</p>

            <h3>Hundreds of civic engagement apps</h3>

            <p>Our open data spawned the creation of:</p>

            <ul>
            <li>OpenCongress</li>
            <li>Sunlight Foundation&rsquo;s Congress API, mobile apps, and Scout website</li>
            <li>POPVOX</li>
            </ul>

            <p>And powers data-journalism mash-ups including:</p>

            <ul>
            <li>MAPLight</li>
            <li>Follow the Oil Money</li>
            </ul>

            <h3>Investigative reporting</h3>

            <p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/members-of-congress-trade-in-companies-while-making-laws-that-affect-those-same-firms/2012/06/23/gJQAlXwVyV_story.html">Members of Congress trade in companies while making laws that affect those same firms</a>
                <br>The Washington Post. June 2012.</p>
            <blockquote>
                One-hundred-thirty members of Congress or their families have traded stocks collectively worth hundreds of millions of dollars in companies lobbying on bills that came before their committees. . . . The Post analysis is based on a comparison of federal financial disclosure forms from all members of Congress to a wide array of public records, drawing on work by the Center for Responsive Politics and Govtrack.us to convert paper documents to databases.
            </blockquote>

            <h3>Parallel sites in other jurisdictions inspired by GovTrack</h3>
            <p>OpenStates.org for U.S. state legislatures</p>
            <p>High-tech Parliamentary Monitoring Organization (PMO) websites in most countries.</p>

            <h3>New official data</h3>
            <p>We put pressure on government to improve their own apps and open data policies, resulting in:</p>
            <ul>
                <li>The Senate publishes votes in XML. (2009)</li>
                <li>The House publishes upcoming bills and a committees calendar (2012).</li>
                <li>Congress.gov offers email updates for legislation (2015).</li>
            </ul>
        </div>
    </div>    

    <div class="outer-container press-clips" style="background-color: #996;">
        <div class="container">
            <h2>Notable Press Coverage</h2>

            <p>The Washington Post. June 2012. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/capitol-assets/congressional-stock-transactions-committee-lobbyists/">Lawmakers trade in stocks they can impact</a>:</p>
            <blockquote>
                More than 100 members of Congress or their families traded stocks or bonds in companies lobbying on bills that passed through their committees, according to a Washington Post examination of congressional stock transactions between 2007 and 2010.
            </blockquote>
            <center><img src="static/img/wapo-stock-trades.png" class="img-responsive"/></center>

            <p>Chicago Tribune. January 2012. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congressional-data-may-soon-be-easier-to-use-online/2012/06/08/gJQAdikBNV_story.html">Rush, Gutierrez rank high in missed votes</a>:</p>
            <blockquote>
                [T]hree other members of the Illinois congressional delegation — Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr., Judy Biggert and Randy Hultgren — have missed fewer than 1 percent of roll calls, according to data from GovTrack.us, a legislative tracking project.
            </blockquote>

            <p>Fox Business. November 2012. (<a href="https://twitter.com/TeamMarcoMiami/status/662767546018488320">link</a>)</p>
            <center><img src="static/img/fox-votes.jpg" class="img-responsive"/></center>

            <p>Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. August 2015. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d667Bb_iYA">LGBT Discrimination</a>:</p>
            <center><img src="static/img/last-week-tonight.png" class="img-responsive"/></center>
        </div>
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    <div class="outer-container press-clips" style="background-color: #884;">
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            <h3>And press coverage about our work</h3>

            <p>The Washington Post. June 2012. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congressional-data-may-soon-be-easier-to-use-online/2012/06/08/gJQAdikBNV_story.html">Congressional data may become easier to use online</a>:</p>
            <blockquote>
                In all, Tauberer has spent nearly a dozen years tracking the vast amounts of wasted time and dead-end bills that the new data should reveal to the world. . . . “What happens if [Tauberer] walks in front of a bus?” said Daniel Schuman of the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation. Where would the data come from then? “This is a question about basic information that the federal government should be giving to the American people.”
            </blockquote>

            <p>LA Times. September 2009. <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/28/business/fi-hiltzik28">These crusaders bring transparency to government</a>:</p>
            <blockquote>
                The work of Malamud, Miller and Tauberer points to a sea change taking place in the transparency of government: Technology is making it harder than ever for elected representatives to conceal how they're spending our money 
            </blockquote>

            <p>Also cited in The New York Times, TIME, The Atlantic, The McLaughlin Group, The Rachel Maddow Show, FiveThirtyEight, Bloomberg, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and hundreds of other publications.</p>
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