Politics 2000

After more than a month off for August recess, Congress resumed its session Monday. Expect Congress to try to end its session in early October so representatives and senators can campaign in their home states and districts. I like to say Politics 2000 is for people who want to know what’s happening but who can’t spend all day watching C-SPAN. Luckily for us, Jim Harper from the Cato Institute is able to follow Congressional activities closely. He then reports on what is happening at Washington Watch.

I talked recently with Mr. Harper. My questions are in italic. Mr. Harper’s responses are in bold. I thank him for his time and assistance.

Could you tell me a bit about yourself? Why did you decide to create a Web site devoted to following Congress’s every move?

I’m a lawyer and native northern Californian, trapped in Washington, D.C. by my love of working in public policy. I worked on Capitol Hill for about six years after law school - various capacities in both the House and Senate. Then I was an independent lobbyist and consultant for four years or so. Following that, and for the last four years, I’ve been Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank.

My inspiration for WashingtonWatch.com comes from my Bay Area roots and my experience on Capitol Hill. While I was working my way up on the Hill, friends of mine from high school, college, and law school were doing cool things in companies like Netscape, Silicon Graphics, and Shutterfly, just to name a few. I began to look for ways that technology and the Internet might affect public policy-making the way it changed book-selling and the news business. I think I’m onto something, but I’m also still searching.

Would you tell me about WashingtonWatch.com? What should I expect when I visit? Are there any affiliated sites?

WashingtonWatch.com tries to give ordinary people more access to information about what’s going on in Congress. For the most part, it takes data that is already available through the Thomas legislative information system and presents in a more user-friendly way.

There aren’t any closely affiliated sites (unless you count the new WashingtonWatch.com blog). We do have a long-term arrangement with PR Newswire to share content with our respective audiences.

Is the site non-partisan? Is there going to be a lot of spin control?

The site is non-partisan, and I view my job on WashingtonWatch.com as reporting what is going on and letting the chips fall where they may.

I try to be transparent about my job and my libertarian ideology so that people can consider that when they look at the site or at my writings on the blog. There is no “neutral” on most public policy issues. The solution is to reveal your premises and biases, and be a fair debater with people who don’t share your views. I regularly collaborate with people who don’t share my ideology - a thing we all agree on is that transparency is a good thing.

It’s early September. Congress was out of session for a month. Were you on vacation?

I was actually working hard assembling a conference on counterterrorism policy for my employer.

In a typical year, roughly how many bills will be introduced in Congress? Of that total, about how many bills will become law?

Before Congress went out for the August recess, we saw the 10,000th bill introduced. The current Congress will set a new record for bills introduced. It’s only the second time that over 10,000 bills have been introduced, and the numbers have been rising rapidly since the 104th. (Each Congress is two years, so we’re talking about 5,000 bills per year - probably more in the first year than in the second year of each Congress.)

From all these bills, only a couple hundred will become law, and many of those are symbolic resolutions and bills to rename post offices. The substantive bills that pass, however, often have hundreds or thousands of pages, and they throw together dozens of different issues. They’re often passed late in a session or just before a holiday in a very abbreviated process, which makes it very hard for the public to have input. This is just one of the difficulties we in the government transparency movement have to deal with in trying to make the government more responsive and open to the citizens.

The political process seems overwhelming at times. What can the average person do to affect change?

It’s overwhelming to me too, but I know enough to provide some basic information to people. I think the average citizen should start slow. Just treat it as a part of your civic duty to be aware of what’s going on, like reading the paper. Subscribe to the WashingtonWatch email newsletter and just look it over to get a sense of what is coming up in Congress each week and what bills are being introduced. Read the WashingtonWatch.com blog to get some stories or examples of how the legislative process responds to current events. (Try to forgive my odd sense of humor or my occassional rant.) Read the “all bills” RSS feed to see the amazing variety of bills that get introduced.

You can’t try to “affect change” right away because it’s a government for 300 million people - it’s not a thing that one person or small group should be able to quickly change - but you can be aware and informed so you can do your civic duty better and help your neighbors and work colleagues become better citizens too.

Can political junkies interact with each other through Washington Watch?

There’s plenty of interaction on the site - from comment boards to wiki editing (and the wiki editors’ discussion pages). I’ll split hairs a little bit with your question: The site is good for *policy wonks* more than “political junkies.”

Politics gets people excited and angry, but I want people to get together and work smartly to figure out how to solve problems with the right policies. Congress and federal agencies work on everything from aviation rules to importation of exotic fruit to immigration rules for nurses. None of those things came up in the political conventions.

Are there any subjects, like the budget, judicial appointments or national security, that draw a lot of traffic to your site?

One of the things that’s amazing about running the site is getting to see the endless variety of interest groups there are. (I mean that in a positive way - groups of people with the same interests.) Big debates can happen on *anything* - horse meat/animal cruelty, veterans’ exposure to agent orange, U.S. policy toward Ethiopia, access to public lands - the list goes on and on. Of course, there are visitors who follow the latest bills on the House or Senate floor, but these debates are so complex and obscure - it’s a nut that we still have to crack.

How can I stay updated about a certain bill?

We have multiple RSS feeds for each bill, as well as for general info like bills introduced, new laws, subject areas, and so on. (Our RSS page helps people who are new to it. If you’re not familiar with RSS, it’s really the way to go for drawing the information you really want from any site - you can get status changes to the bills you’re watching on WashingtonWatch.com and headlines from the New York Times all in the same place.) I think people can benefit by following the RSS feeds on particular subjects (follow the “subjects” link in the left column). This will allow them to see the bills that affect their employers, their investments, a favorite issue like gun control or reproductive rights, a foreign country - anything!

What else should I know about WashingtonWatch.com?

Your good questions have drawn most of the good things out. I think people should subscribe to the email newsletter and read the blog, then just follow whatever interests them. I’ve tried to give people lots of nooks and crannies to explore. Over time, we’ll do more and more to get people educated, organized, and activated on the issues they care about.

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