I saw the diaries on the rec list over the weekend, but I didn't realize the groundswell that was building until this evening when I read
annan's diary all the way through. I've been so proud of my participation here at Daily Kos because of the ideas and enthusiasm I see here and this is another winner. It might even be crucial. That doesn't mean it's not a little hard to grok for a newbie, like me, to wiki and congressional committees. I gleaned some good advice from comments in annan's diary that I'll share after the break.
Tips follow, collected from the
diary. Please be sure to check it out and the other diaries that started the ball rolling on this project!
Below, usernames will take you to the original comment in the diary (I missed a few--sorry!), links within blockquotes will take you to the originally referenced resources. I tried only to winnow out the ideas for finding info about congressional committees. Thoughts on how to form our dKos committees, volunteers for committees, etc., were mostly left out. There me some repitition. I wanted to let each user's words stand as I didn't feel qualified to edit them.
Halcyon says:
You will need to create a dKosopedia account, and sign yourself up!. Go to the Congressional Committees Project page, navigate to the Committee for which you opt to volunteer, 'copy' the URL, click on 'edit.' This will take you to the page where you will be requested to 'create an account' or 'log in.' Create your account (I used my regular dK handle and password). Then 'paste' and hit 'return,' which should bring you to an editable version of the Committee page. Enter your user name into where it says 'user=', then preview. If all looks correct, then 'save'.
To get started, annan says:
Check out the wiki page to see if there is a committee that interests you. If so, just sign up or leave us a comment in this diary and we'll keep you informed as things develop.
To add your name to the wiki list:
Go to the dKosopedia site. Scroll down to the committee you want to adopt. On the right side of the page is an edit button adjacent to that Committee. Click edit, and a line of gobblydegook appears that ends with =user. Substitute your user ID for "user". Save the page.
Voila! You're it!
selise has good recs and questions:
1. i've been trying to rip mp3's of some especially interesting committee hearings and then post clips of my senators' statements or questions. some of the committees (like senate commerce) have excellent archives of webcasts, but others don't and so i've had to rely on c-span which will sometime broadcast hearings. question: what are the fair use limitations of posting audio from c-span and committee webcasts?
2. the washington post usually publishes transcripts of the senate judiciary committee hearings, but i haven't been able to find other free transcripts (other than the occassional published transcript). i've found several transcription services that routinely make transcripts of the committee hearings within a day or two, but they cost money. waiting for gpo access can take a year or more. question: does anyone know of a timely free source of committee hearing transcripts? if not, could we consider taking up a collection to purchase transcripts of the most critical hearings?
3. most comittee websites do not have even bad archiving of hearing webcasts (senate commerce is an example of good archives)... question: could we kossacks lobby reid and pelosi to get all the committees' websites to include good streaming webcasts and archives of all committee hearings going forward?
rduckham says:
The Congressional Committees Project
Each day the Congress is in session the "Washington Post" has a column entitled "Today in Congress", this is a list of committee hearings, time and location of those hearings. www.washingtonpost.com It is in the politics section, in the in congress subsection.
Also, the congredssional record has a list of the next days committee hearings.
Also CQ (subscription required) has a list of congressional hearings with a witness list.
greenreflex says that Thomas has searchable committee reports
alisonk says:
My suggestion is as follows:
I think it needs two kinds of volunteers.
first are the policy geeks to help explain what's going on,
second are the constituents of the members of the subcommittee so they can help organize locally.
Then you get a closed loop.
I like this suggestion because even though I'm not an expert or a policy wonk, I feel like I can contribute by keeping tabs on my congressional reps and perhaps being a liason with them.
plf515 asks: What does each committee and subcommittee do? And pb was just looking it up!
Subcommittee Jurisdiction
In general, the Subcommittee handles issues related to education, basic research, and the health of the U.S. academic research enterprise. The Subcommittee oversees NSF, the U.S. Fire Administration (part of DHS), and the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. Matters before the Subcommittee include science and math education, computer security, government-wide R&D initiatives such as information technology and nanotechnology, and advancing fire and earthquake mitigation efforts.
edgery goes on to recommend:
See also the website for the Clerk (14+ / 0-)
on the House side here. This page will give you the basics on committees, etc. as well as links to the standing and select committees.
on the Senate side, this page will take you to somewhat similar information.
Halcyon has good advice if you were to, say, monitor the Federalism and the Census Subcommittee:
To set up a dKosopedia account, copy the 'Congressional Committees Project' URL, then click on 'Create an account or log in,' (in the upper right corner). Create your account, then paste, hit 'return,' and proceed to 'edit' your username into the appropriate space.
Monitor the Federalism and the Census Subcommittee daily.
When you have information to report, click on the name of your elected subcommittee, and file a dated report (at then end of your entry, sign off with a date and your username. When there are imminent hearings or other important events which require kommunity action, post a diary.
pb points us toward a page that explains
how to edit a wiki page.
dangangry says:
I have been to the House website
There are currently roughly 100 bills that are pending. I'm going to try to contact one of the legislators and get a feel for how these bills move through the House.
Kimberly Stone says:
Write your congressperson
Tell him or her about your studies and your strong interest in committee activities and legislation.
Ask him or her if they would introduce you as an interested person who'd like to get emails, etc. from the relevant committee's chairman.
Don't stop there - write the committee chairman yourself, and follow up with friendly phone call to their staff.
At the minimum, you could request a slate of committee members, their schedule, their agenda, the legislation that might be left over that they're considering, whatever new items they are considering.
You'll probably need to persist a bit - they're all busy and you're not their constituent. Sending a self-addressed stamped envelope or two would work, if they do not want to/cannot electronically transmit documents to you.
simonf says:
Mailing list?
Use the '+' sign for sections on the talk page. It's unwieldy for more than a few comments, though, so greenreflex and I created a yahoo group 'committeewatch' (which is a mailing list with public archives). At some point we might want to start advertising it.
andyfoland says:
Existing Resources
Many professional organizations keep close tabs on the committees and already issue regular news coverage. For instance, scattered over the various science committees, the American Institute of Physics does an excellent job on physics and astronomy.
That's the one I happen to know in my field. Others surely exist among the various other fields, which might reduce the burden on Kossacks.
selise follows that up with:
fas intelligence service covers some intelligence/judiciary/homeland security committees. no write-ups but lots of good links.
plf515 says:
If you go to this page there's a list of committees
inside the committees, you can find
hearings;
schedules;
interesting links
and various stuff.
The Centerfielder volunteers:
Resource depository
I can set up some repositories on dKosopedia for .pdf and .mp3 files, in case you guys want to start saving and referencing Committee documents and, as mentioned above, webcasts of Committee meetings.
I could probably also set up dKosopedia mailing lists, though I haven't done that for any project yet. If you're happy with the yahoo list, then that's ok.
Also, when writing DailyKos diaries, you can easily reference dKosopedia articles by putting the article name inside the following: dk followed by two left braces "{{" followed by two right braces "}}". So dk {{Congressional Committe Project}} (without the space between "dk" and "{{") becomes Congressional Committe Project. Note the nifty dotted underline link. I think we thank Jeremy for this.
simonf says:
Found this website with a similar person that's run by a single person. We need to coopt him.
Lots of great ideas at dKos. I hope this diary helps everyone proceed with this project. Dive in and get messy!