ORGANIZATIONS ACROSS THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM ASK HOUSE AND SENATE LEADERS TO POST COMMITTEE VOTES ONLINE

15 Apr 2008 // Washington, DC - Today, nineteen organizations from across the political spectrum joined Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) in asking leaders in both the Houses of Representatives and the Senate that all committee roll call votes be posted on their websites within 24 hours in tandem with an easily accessible online database of those votes. The letters are available at www.citizensforethics.org.

Currently, retrieving committee votes from Congress is at the very least cumbersome and sometimes even impossible. The only reliable way to review committee votes is to pay thousands of dollars each year to private organizations such as Congressional Quarterly, National Journal, or Gallery Watch, thereby making the votes inaccessible to those who either cannot afford to pay those costs or to visit the relevant committee offices.

CREW executive director Melanie Sloan said today, "Leaders in both houses have publicly pledged to ensure greater transparency and accountability in Congress. By posting committee votes online, everyone, not just lobbyists and interest groups, will have greater access to and information about decisions made in Congress. Just as roll call votes for the full House and Senate are readily available on the Internet, committee votes should be similarly available."

The following twenty organizations joined today's effort:

American Civil Liberties Union
American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)
American Federation of Teachers
Americans for Prosperity
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Campaign Legal Center
Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
Defenders of Wildlife
League of Conservation Voters
MAPLight.org
NARAL Pro-Choice America
National Organization for Women (NOW)
National Education Association
National Taxpayers Union
Natural Resources Defense Council
OMB Watch
Project On Government Oversight
Public Citizen
Sunlight Foundation

The letters to both House and Senate leaders are available on the right.

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Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions.

For more information, please visit www.citizensforethics.org or contact Naomi Seligman Steiner at 202.408.5565/nseligman@citizensforethics.org.

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