Wednesday, May 11, 2016 Washington, D.C.

Congress is poised to transform its legislative information from outdated documents into open, searchable data. If the House and Senate adopted a consistent data format for all bills, amendments, passed laws, and legal compilations, then new software could bring better transparency and more efficient lawmaking. The bipartisan Statutes at Large Modernization Act, introduced by Reps. Brat and Moulton, takes a giant step toward a data-driven future by setting up a structured data format for the Statutes at Large. Together with similar reforms for other legislative materials, the Statutes at Large Modernization Act will enable automatic redlining between bills and the laws they amend; electronic crosswalks from appropriations to the final disbursement of taxpayer funds; and cheaper, easier legal research.

At the Legislative Data Demo Day, Reps. Moulton and Brat previewed live demonstrations of the technologies that can modernize laws and lawmaking – if Congress embraces the transformation from documents into data.