According to an article in the November 16th issue of The Washington Post , the promise that U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich made three years ago to change the rules of the House to make congressional information equally available to all citizens has gone unfufilled.
Some congressional information is available - at a steep price.
Other congressional information is available on-line for free. According to the Post article, much additional information about Congress is either difficult or impossible for an average citizen with Internet access to obtain. The additional information Congress could put on the Internet, but does not, includes voting records, texts of bills and amendments, congressional office expenditures, Congressional Research Service reports and issue briefs, hearing records and written testimony, lobbyist disclosure reports, members' financial disclosure reports, and draft committee and conference reports. The article's author, Gary Ruskin, is the Director of the Congressional Accountability Project, a nonprofit group affiliated with Ralph Nader. The rational response of lawmakers after the recent congressional Internal Revenue Service inquiry might have been to reduce the amount of financial data taxpayers have to retain.