Political Education 101: Niftiness and Transparency Are Taken to a National Level

We provided a link a few days ago, e-lobbyist.com, which gives readers information to track legislative bills introduced in state legislatures.

Here is a link I discovered sponsored by C-Span, congress.org, which focuses on national legislation and legislators' votes:

Track your Senators' and Representative's votes by e-mail

Each week (that Congress is in session) you will receive: • Key votes by your two Senators and U.S. Representative. • Links to send e-mail to your members of Congress using pre-addressed forms. • Upcoming votes for your review and a chance to offer e-mail input before they vote. Use this weekly vote monitor to track the decisions made by your elected officials on key issues.

If you scroll down the website, you can access the following information:

Directories

• President and Vice President
• Congress
• State Elected Officials
• Local Elected Officials
• Federal Agencies
• Supreme Court

Legislation

• Bill Search
• Vote Search
• Track Votes by Email

Issues & Actions

• Take Action on Issues
• Calls to Action by Organization
• Calls to Action by Topic
• Read Your Letters to Leaders
• Hand Deliver Your Letters
• Meet the Activists

Election

• Election Candidates & Info
• Register to Vote

Soapbox

• Soapbox Alerts
• Create an Alert

More Resources

• Today's House Schedule
• Today's Senate Schedule
• Committee Hearing Search
• Capitol Hill Basics
• Add Us to Your Site
• Tell A Friend About Us

You now have an efficient manner to track legislation on the state and national levels. These sites are marvelous tools in obtaining the elusive transparency voters desire from the government and elected officials. It seems this would be a valuable tool for students studying government.

Many thanks to C-Span for this service. The entire Health Care debate was promised to be read in the spirit of transparency on C-Span by the new administration, but alas, this did not happen. The public received one hour of debate the administration allowed C-Span to air. This site may be the only transparency the voters get until that promise is fulfilled.