Here's a new mashup for a new week that can be filed in the U.S. Congress category.
BillMaps is very easy to use but potentially very useful for those who like to "see" how something looks. Sometimes you can see something on a map (e.g. a trend) that would be difficult to detect just by looking at the text.
Simply enter a bill number (the database goes back to 101st Congress) and then select what you would one of the two mapping options. You can either map where the sponsors of a bill are from or what a vote looks like on a map. In other words, Google Map "pins" are placed inside the state where the congressperson is from and colored either green for "aye" or red for "nay."
Each pin can be clicked and you'll find the name of the voter and direct links to info about that person from the OpenCongress database and the Govtrack.us database (a ResourceShelf fave).
On the home page you can find links to:
+ Most Tracked Bills this Week
+ Most Supported Bills this Week
+ Most Opposed Bills this Week
+ Hot Bills
+ Most Blogged Bills this Week
Btw, on any list page you can access a brief bill summary by moving your cursor over the title of the bill.
So here's an example. First, we selected Most Tracked Bills this Week
We're finding out where the "most tracked" number is coming from. Our guess, GovTrack.us.
Next, we selected #H.197: National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2009, click and we see where the 162 sponsors are from.
In addition to the map you'll find a brief summary and related bills.
Here's another example, we went to the top of the home page and entered H.1 from the 110th Congress and then vote. The bill was titled, Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007. Here's the map.
Below the map you'll see 435 votes. Next to that you'll spot an "S." Click and you'll go to the sponsor map. On a sponsor map, look for a "V." When clicked you'll go to a vote map for that piece of legislation.
A nice use of several databases and API's (Application Programming Interfaces) to create something that can provide a view not visible without the use of a map.
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