Trending Politics: Facebook App Lets You Monitor & Support Any Congressional Bill
At Digital Afro, we always like to keep you informed. Unfortunately, there are thousands of laws, and acts of congress that have directly impacted all of us that most Americans aren’t even aware of. The major problem is that most Americans don’t have a way to track any of the legislation that is being introduced or passed by Congress, until now.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) launched Cosponsor.gov Tuesday, a Facebook-based website and app that lets users mark their support for and track legislation in the House.
Cantor’s office first introduced a version of the app over a year ago. However, the previous iteration only worked with a small handful of bills, most of which were introduced by Republicans. The new Cosponsor.gov works with any bill, regardless of political genesis.
“The launch of Cosponsor.gov is a sweeping expansion of our Citizen Cosponsor Project,” Cantor said in a statement. “The new website will now feature every bill and resolution introduced in the House, from Republicans and Democrats.” I’m excited that any engaged citizen can voice their support, and track the status of legislation in the House.”
After marking suport for a bill, users are updated on the bill’s progress via Facebook notifications. Other services, such as GovTrack.us, offer similar legislation-tracking features for all congressional bills. But Citizen Cosponsor is notable because of its creator: a member of Congress.
At least one other House member provides an online public forum to discuss and debate his legislation: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) uses his Madison Project to crowdsource parts of his legislative agenda.
Cantor, however, acknowledges that Citizen Cosponsor’s latest update is but one update on the path to a more open Congress.
“Transparency, open government and engagement should be a key goal of all elected leaders in Washington, and Cosponsor.gov is one step in that direction,” Cantor said.
Even though this technology was introduced by Republicans (who surely have seen what the power of Social Media did for President Obama,) the platform has serious potential to change the way Congress works with the people. This will undoubtedly bring a sense of transparency to Washington like never before. Head over to CoSponsor.gov to check it out and let us know what you think in the comments.
More transperancy for Congress may be one of the few things I agree with Republicans on
 Good Job Mr. Cantor  😀
