- “This has been a long time coming; House leadership deserves enormous credit for making it a reality.
... Kudos to the House for continuing to set a great example for the
rest of government. We're looking forward to hacking on this new dataset
for a long time to come.” (Sunlight Foundation, The U.S. Code Arrives In XML, 7/30/13)
- “‘This is great progress toward better public oversight of government,’
[Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato
Institute] said. ‘Having the U.S. Code in XML can allow websites, apps,
and information services to weave together richer stories about how the
law applies and how Congress is thinking about changing it.’” (U.S. House of Representatives publishes U.S. Code as open government data, 7/30/13)
- “This seemingly technical announcement must be understood as a bigger win for transparency than it would initially appear.
… What the House leadership is doing (in a bipartisan fashion, no
less) is empowering the American people to better understand the law.
Congress is publishing the law online, in real time, and in formats that
web developers can refashion into tools that empower everyone to
understand the rules that govern our country.” (CREW, In Transparency Win, House Opens Up US Code, 7/30/13)
- “‘I think they did an outstanding job,’ commented Eric Mill, a developer at the Sunlight Foundation.
‘Historically, the U.S. Code has been extremely difficult to reliably
and accurately use as data. These new XML files are sensibly designed,
thoroughly documented, and easy to use.’” (U.S. House of Representatives publishes U.S. Code as open government data, 7/30/13)
- “‘[The U.S. Code data] is really good example of this kind of project done right,’
[Joshua Tauberer, creator of Govtrack] said. ‘The documentation is very
comprehensive and detailed and really one of the best examples of
documentation for a government XML standard that I've ever seen. The
data is structured in a coherent, natural way.’ … The new tool will make
it possible for Govtrack to offer a service allowing users to track
elements of the Code and receive an alert any time a bill mentions a
specific section, he said.” (TechPresident, House Publishes U.S. Code in XML, 7/30/13)
Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
also praised the move, calling it “an important step towards making our
federal laws more open and transparent.” He commended the “dedicated
civil servants who are leading the effort from the non-partisan
legislative branch agencies, like OLRC, who work diligently behind the
scenes – too often without recognition – to keep Congress working and
moving forward.”
House Administration Committee Chair Candice Miller (R-MI) said, “This improvement, which will save both time and money, changes the legislative transparency landscape.”
And Oversight & Government Reform Chair Darrell Issa (R-CA)
said, “By broadening access to public, government data we give civic
engineers and developers the ability to create new, innovative ways of
sharing this information with the American people.”
Learn more about ongoing open government initiatives in the House at speaker.gov/open.
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