The backlog
Project proposals
19 proposals across 5 themes, developed in partnership with the American Governance Institute. Every problem statement came from a real-world request by people working in and around Congress — each proposal pairs one with a concrete tool to fix it.
I. Enhancing Congressional Data Accessibility & Usability
Projects improving the discoverability, structure, and utility of legislative data for both congressional staff and the public.
Unified Congressional Hearing & Markup Data Platform
A centralized, regularly updated platform (sheet → website/wiki) that aggregates and links key committee proceeding data.
Congressional Committee YouTube Video Dashboard & Event ID Tracking
Dashboard that monitors committee YouTube uploads, cross-references with Congress.gov/Docs.house.gov to link official Event IDs, and surfaces metrics and alerts.
Statements of Disbursements as Structured Data
Make historic House Statements of Disbursements (~1980–present) machine-readable by extracting, cleaning, and normalizing PDFs into a consistent, analyzable dataset.
Appropriations Data Pipeline & Historical Analysis
Comprehensive pipeline to track appropriations in real time, extract line-item data, and analyze report language historically across House/Senate stages.
II. Workflow Efficiency Tools for Congressional Operations
Streamlining workflows to improve efficiency for congressional staff.
Automated Google Doc Creator for Meetings
Firefox bookmarklet that creates consistently named, pre-formatted Google Docs for meeting notes in the right Drive folder.
GitHub Wiki Indexing Bookmarklet
Bookmarklet that generates a clickable table of contents for any GitHub Wiki page from its headings.
Crosswalk Spreadsheet to Member Office Appropriations Submission Tool
Tool that maps a standardized spreadsheet of requests to each Member office’s Google Form and automates form filling.
Floor Schedule to iCal & Enhanced Congressional Schedule Aggregation
Transform floor schedules into iCal and integrate with committee schedules for a unified congressional calendar.
Congressional Job Board Aggregator
Centralized feed/site that aggregates congressional job postings from PDFs, Senate sites, House support offices, and USAJOBS.
III. Leveraging AI for Content Enhancement & Analysis
Explore AI applications to improve congressional information quality and analysis.
CRS Report Accessibility & Integration
Integrate HTML CRS reports into EveryCRSReport.com, convert legacy PDFs to HTML/Markdown, add EPUB distribution, AI tagging, and Wikipedia integration.
GAO Report Transformation & Dissemination
Convert GAO PDFs to Markdown/EPUB and publish them for accessible reading, searching, and reuse.
Automated Committee Hearing Transcripts & Summaries
AI pipeline for near real-time hearing transcripts, concise summaries, and EPUBs, integrated with the unified hearing/markup data project.
Write My GovTrack Newsletter (AI-Powered Legislative Newsletter)
AI tool that compiles a weekly GovTrack-style newsletter from floor schedules, committee info, and the Congressional Record.
Witness Database with Proceeding Links & Testimony Summarization
Database that tracks witnesses across proceedings with links, transcripts, summaries, QFRs, and search by name and role.
IV. Predictive & Analytical Tools for Legislative Insight
Projects using data to generate predictive insights and facilitate analysis of legislative processes.
Bills to Committee Referral Prediction
ML model to predict bill-to-committee referrals based on historical patterns, bill text, sponsor, and subject.
Bill Delay Tracker
Dashboard that measures the lag between bill text publication and Congress.gov summary availability, with key metrics.
Appropriations Notices & Deadlines Tracker
Centralized tracker (sheet or site) for appropriations instructions, deadlines, hearing dates, and contacts across committees and subcommittees.
Committee Funding Tracker & Visualization
Extract and chart historical committee funding levels from House/Senate funding resolutions to show trends over time.
Line Up CBJs and Appropriations Committee Report Language
Link agency CBJ sections to matching appropriations report language using keywords, topic modeling, and ML.
V. Basic Utility Tools
No open proposals here — this theme's one project is already built.