Lieberman addresses putting Senate votes in XML

Following up on Ari’s post- At yesterday’s Senate HSGAC hearing, Senator Lieberman noted briefly:

Furthermore Senate votes, unlike House votes, are intentionally presented in a format that limits the public’s ability to examine Senators’ voting records.

I confirmed with HSGAC that Lieberman was indeed referring to making Senate votes available in XML format, like the House does. This is a really important sign, that a Senator has now understood and signed onto the idea of using structured data for something. As I blogged previously, putting Senate votes in XML means independent websites, like my GovTrack, the NYTimes, etc., can more easily create new transformative applications of the data, which helps make the public more informed.

I’m personally quite excited about this, and in no small part because I am pretty sure we can trace back Lieberman’s remark, at least in part, to the work of the Open House Project.