Transparency and public participation in the legislative process are pillars of democratic legitimacy. But under current practices, the public is too often shut out of the process of how bills are crafted. That’s why Issue One recently joined a crosspartisan push encouraging greater accessibility and transparency of Senate bills and amendments.
A letter to the Senate Rules Committee last week signed by 41 organizations and 15 experts, including Issue One, urges the Senate to publish the text of bills and amendments online prior to votes — not just afterward. This shift in legislative procedure would give constituents and outside stakeholder groups the ability to engage with this material and make their voices heard prior to votes.
The push for greater transparency in the Senate is imperative, the groups wrote, because the current system creates “unequal access to information, whereby those with connections to Senate offices can at times gain access to information far more easily than those who do not.”
The letter continues: “While some information asymmetries are inevitable, privileged access to public business that currently is the subject of floor debate should be minimized to the extent practically possible.”
Issue One’s participation in this push for contemporaneous information is part of our broader work to modernize Congress and to make the legislative branch more transparent, efficient, and effective.
