How They Voted: A Short Story of Technology and Transparency

To the surprise of no one who knows me, I'm a big fan of transparency in government. I'm also a big fan of using technology to make access to information easier for everyone.

I've used desktop feed readers for five years (NetNewsWire and FeedDemon, before they were both owned by Newsgator) on various computers. Lately I've begun using Google Reader since it has the convenient quality of being accessible anywhere I have Internet access, regardless of what computer I am on at the time.

I decided I'd populate Google Reader with every relevant RSS feed I could find for news websites in Texas. In the past, I usually haven't ventured beyond the D/FW-Austin-Houston feeds of the Morning News, the Star Telegram, the Chronicle and the Statesman. Texas is a big state, and there are a lot of news of political interest going on in East Texas, the Gulf Coast, the Valley, West Texas and the Panhandle that I've previously ignored.

I've found feeds from papers in Tyler, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, Laredo, El Paso, Midland and Amarillo. In the process of discovering and adding all these feeds to Google Reader, I ran across what I think is a great idea for political reporting in the El Paso Times: A column called "How They Voted" that details the votes of Congressional members from the El Paso area, the votes of state House and state Senate members from the El Paso area and even City Council and Commissioner's Court members' votes.

It's such a simple, straightforward concept, and it is a big step forward for making government, especially local government (which tends to be the least transparent and least democratic unit of government), more transparent. Bravo, El Paso Times!

If any Texas Blue readers would like my OPML file for their news readers or would like to know more about using a news reader (seriously, it will change your online life), get in touch with me.