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Congressional Reform Briefings July 8, 1998
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Support the McCain-Coats-Leahy Amendment to put Congressional Research Service reports and products on the Internet.Senate floor action on the McCain-Coats-Leahy Amendment expected today or tomorrow.Please call, fax, or e-mail your Senators today in support of the McCain-Coats-Leahy Amendment to put CRS reports on the Internet. (The McCain-Coats-Leahy Amendment does not yet have a number, and is not yet available on the Internet.) The congressional switchboard phone number is (202) 224-3121. For e-mail addresses of Senators, consult the Electronic Activist at , http://www.berkshire.net/~ifas/activist/. The Washington Post published an editorial yesterday in support of McCain-Coats bill to put CRS reports on the Internet: "The case for openness is simple: The legislative branch, funded by taxpayer money, should be as close as possible to an open book to those taxpayers, and materials now available only to lobbyists with connections should be accessible to every citizen....Meanwhile, the slow progress of legislation to open the workings of the government is worth watching and encouraging." (Washington Post, "Whose Research Is It?" 7/7/98.) The editorial is available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-07/07/001l-070798-idx.html Citizens, scholars, journalists, librarians, and businesses have long wanted easy access to CRS reports. The McCain-Coats and Shays-Price bills to put CRS reports on the Internet have been endorsed by a broad coalition, including the Congressional Accountability Project, Consumer Project on Technology, Common Cause, League of Women Voters of the United States, Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Conservative Union, National Association of Manufacturers, Business Software Alliance, IBM Corporation, America Online Inc., Netscape Communications Corp., Intel Corp., Taxpayers for Common Sense, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, United Seniors Association, and U.S. Term Limits. Other endorsers include Russell Verney, Chairman of the Reform Party, and Peter J. Sepp, Vice-President of the National Taxpayers Union. Many newspapers have published editorials praising the idea of putting CRS reports on the Internet, including the Washington Post, Hartford Courant, Indianapolis Star, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Dallas Morning News, Arizona Republic, Houston Chronicle (twice), Richmond Times-Dispatch, Roanoke Times, and the Charleston (WV) Gazette. For more information about the long list of excellent reports produced by the Congressional Research Service, look at the web page for Penny Hill Press, which sells CRS products. http://www.clark.net/pub/pennyhill/pennyhill.html. For more information about the failure of the Congress to place its documents on the Internet, see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/fedguide/stories/fig112197.htm.
The Congressional Accountability Project is a congressional reform group affiliated with Ralph Nader. For more information about Internet access to congressional documents or CRS reports, see http://www.essential.org/orgs/CAP/CAP.html.
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Gary Ruskin | gary@essential.org | Congressional Accountability Project | 1611 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite #3A | Washington, DC 20009 |
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