“The first thing I noticed, before the City Council meeting even began, was the massive amount of paper being carried into the Council Chambers. There were more than 1,400 legislative documents to be considered in just that one monthly meeting; the U.S. Congress, with vastly more resources and staff, averaged roughly 20 legislative documents considered each month during the 113th Congress.
“Beyond the sheer volume, many of those 1,400 documents ran hundreds of pages long. All were printed on paper, with a copy of each made for each of the 52 elected officials on the Council. And the most paper came from the Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards, almost blocking my view of the committee’s chairman.”
Around the world, technologists, policy makers, and openness advocates are employing creative solutions to help their legislatures solve difficult problems. Over the next few weeks, Harvard’s Ash Center and The OpenGov Foundation are hosting a series of events in the US to create solutions to the difficult problems facing the US Congress.
#Hack4Congress, a series of “not-just-for-technologists” events, brings together political scientists, technologists, designers, lawyers, researchers, Congressional staffers, and lawmakers to create new digital tools, policy innovations, and other solutions to address the dysfunction in the US Congress.
To get a sense of what a #Hack4Congress event is like, take a look at this great recap video from the first hack:
