Know Thy Congressman

September 10, 2009 11:29 AM

Know Thy Congressman (an Apps for America Project of Sunlight Labs) provides a handy bookmarklet that lets you get a quick overview of Congresscritters that you might not be familiar with. The winners for Round Two of Apps for America (focusing on data.gov) were announced yesterday.

• Round 1 submissions for Apps for America (previously)
• Round 2 submissions for Apps for America
• Round two winners:
  • DataMasher - Create your own mashups. Want to know how many unemployed people there are per square mile? Find out here.
  • GovPulse - Browse & filter the Federal Register.
  • This We Know - Discover what data the government has on your community.

posted by sciurus (14 comments total)

That's pretty neat. :)
posted by zarq at 11:49 AM on September 10, 2009

Neat but dangerous when wrong. I would like them to know that my Congressperson Donna Edwards has not cheated on his wife. That was JOHN Edwards.
posted by poppo at 11:57 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

So are you saying that this data.gov website isn't related to dating?

That it isn't subdivided into:

• data congressman
• data senator
• data intern
• data page
• etc.?

posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:25 PM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

• Data, Lt. Cmdr.

posted by cog_nate at 12:31 PM on September 10, 2009

It has my Congressman even though she's neither a full member nor a man.

Maybe they should change the name to "Know Your Member"
posted by Pollomacho at 12:35 PM on September 10, 2009

Maybe they should change the name to "Know Your Member"

Michael Duvall would like the "Know My Member" app.
posted by ryoshu at 12:43 PM on September 10, 2009

I like that the "close" button is in the correct, upper-left position. Also, the bookmarklet is neat and informative and so forth.
posted by interrobang at 1:17 PM on September 10, 2009

Cool - but I don't need an app to tell me my Congressman is a douche.
posted by contessa at 1:30 PM on September 10, 2009

Curiously, they "can't find enough information" on either my (newly elected last November) congressdude or my (newly elected last November) junior senator.

I spent a good five minutes trying all of the variations of their names to see if I could make them spit out some info. With middle initials, without. last names only. first names only. Nicknames. Deliberate misspellings. Nada!
posted by julen at 2:06 PM on September 10, 2009

Good stuff. I look forward to putting these apps through their paces.
posted by lekvar at 2:17 PM on September 10, 2009

hm. "capuano" got me a "can't find" error, but "mike capuano" worked. i have to remember my congresscritter's first name?
posted by rmd1023 at 3:00 PM on September 10, 2009

This stuff is great!
posted by JHarris at 3:06 PM on September 10, 2009

Demographics: 56 people were Hispanic, 121 were African American, 139 were Asian, 13,053 were White, 6,730 were Male, and 6,805 were Female (in this town)

Good ol' New Hampshire.
posted by DU at 5:28 PM on September 10, 2009

The recent NYT articles part needs some work: Jim Webb get a bunch of articles about Andrew Lloyd Webber - slightly different. Although I bet that a musical by Jim Webb would be totally badass.
posted by naoko at 5:05 AM on September 11, 2009