Happy Birthday, U.S. Constitution. Can We Talk about the Constitution Annotated?

Yesterday was the 230th birthday of the U.S. Constitution, signed at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787. More than a hundred years ago, Congress ordered its Library to publish an annotated Constitution that explains that important document. Each edition, starting in 1913, records how our founding document has been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, with new print volumes published each decade and updates published every two years. Continue reading “Happy Birthday, U.S. Constitution. Can We Talk about the Constitution Annotated?”

The 2017 #OpenGov National Action Plan

 

City Lights 2012 - Flat map
Photo credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Starting in 2011 and every two years afterward, the White House has drawn up an open government national action plan that is intended to contain specific, measurable open government commitments. The planning process is an outgrowth of the Obama administration’s open government initiative, which kicked off in 2009 when agencies were first required to create open government plans, but takes place on an international scale.

The Trump administration said it will continue this process and is collecting recommendations for the 2017 plan. (More explanation via the Sunlight Foundation.)

While we were heartened to see the Obama administration adopt one of our recommendations — a machine readable government organization chart — most of the other ideas were not put into action. We reiterate and update them here and call on Congress to require the administration to put them into effect. In summary, they are:

Continue reading “The 2017 #OpenGov National Action Plan”