New Resource Available to Help Media, Public Track Bills Pending in Congress

Members of the media and the general public can now track legislation pending in Congress and view pro and con information about bills on WashingtonWatch.com, a non-partisan Web site that today unveiled new "wiki" capability.

The site's wiki technology enables lawmakers, lobbyists, trade associations, and others involved in the legislative process to create and edit content about specific bills.

"WashingtonWatch.com is like Wikipedia for legislation," said Jim Harper, founder of the site. "WashingtonWatch.com provides a more user-friendly and interactive way for the public to learn about legislation than the Library of Congress' THOMAS site. It's all about government transparency."

The WashingtonWatch.com wiki is the first and only wiki designed specifically for bill-by-bill tracking of legislation. Among the other features are:

• Regular e-mail alerts about new bills in Congress and activity in the House and Senate.
• A catalog of bills that is organized by topic and is fully searchable.
• Cost or savings information for legislation, based on government estimates.
• Online polls where site visitors can vote on bills.
• A "watch" that will e-mail you whenever the wiki entry of a specific bill is updated.
• A ranking system that displays which pages the public visits most often each week.

The site recently received a "mini-grant" from the Sunlight Foundation, which also helps fund the Center for Responsive Politics, OMB Watch, and other activities designed to increase government transparency and reduce government corruption.

Using WashingtonWatch.com is free. A detailed tutorial for the wiki is included on the site.