September 17, 2010<\/p>\n
The Honorable Charles E. Schumer
Chairman, Committee on Rules and Administration
305 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510<\/p>\n
The Honorable Bob Bennett
Ranking Member, Committee on Rules and Administration
479 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510<\/p>\n
The Honorable Robert A. Brady
Chairman, Committee on House Administration
1309 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515<\/p>\n
The Honorable Dan Lungren
Ranking Member, Committee on House Administration
1313 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515<\/p>\n
Dear Chairmen Schumer and Brady and Ranking Members Bennett and Lungren:<\/p>\n
On the 223rd anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, we the undersigned organizations write to urge that the legal treatise Constitution Annotated<\/em> be published online in XML format each time it is updated. The Constitution of the United States: Analysis and Interpretation<\/em>, as it is formally known, is an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and others interested in learning how the U.S. Supreme Court interprets our nation’s governing document. Organized to explain the Constitution clause by clause, the Constitution Annotated has been continuously published for nearly 100 years and contains analysis of nearly 8,000 U.S. Supreme Court cases.<\/p>\n As you know, the Constitution Annotated<\/em> is currently available online in plain text and PDF formats that do not allow readers to efficiently search, navigate, and electronically transform the text. Moreover, the Congressional Research Service regularly updates the Constitution Annotated and publishes revisions on the congressional intranet, but the public document is only updated every two years. Because CRS already maintains the document in XML format, it should not be difficult to publish each update on the internet when it occurs.<\/p>\n After the Sunlight Foundation’s letter of September 17, 2009 and Senator Feingold’s letter of October 28, 2009 on this topic, CRS and GPO held discussions regarding publication of the Constitution Annotated<\/em>. GPO has stated that it is awaiting direction from the Senate. While we believe that CRS and GPO already have a mandate to publish the Constitution Annotated<\/em> as we have requested and should do so now, we also urge the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and\/or the Committee on House Administration to reaffirm and direct that this vital resource be made available to the American people online as it is updated and in XML.<\/p>\n We welcome the opportunity to discuss this issue with us further. Please contact Daniel Schuman at the Sunlight Foundation at 202-742-1520 x 273 or dschuman@sunlightfoundation.com.<\/p>\n With best regards,<\/p>\n Mary Alice Baish, American Association of Law Librarians<\/p>\n The Honorable Bob Barr<\/p>\n Christopher Finan, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression<\/p>\n Norm Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute<\/p>\n Lynne Bradley, American Library Association<\/p>\n Leslie Harris, Center for Democracy and Technology<\/p>\n J. Bradley Jansen, Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights<\/p>\n Josh Tauburer, Civic Impulse, LLC<\/p>\n Tom Bruce, Cornell Legal Information Institute<\/p>\n Sue Udry, Defending Dissent Foundation<\/p>\n David Sobel, Electronic Frontier Foundation<\/p>\n John Richard, Essential Information<\/p>\n Ethel Sorokin, Freedom Projects<\/p>\n Mark Hicks, Friends of the U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation<\/p>\n Michael Ostrolenk, Liberty Coalition<\/p>\n Northern California Association of Law Libraries<\/p>\n Patrice McDermott, OpenTheGovernment.org<\/p>\n David Moore, Participatory Politics Foundation<\/p>\n Progressive Librarians Guild<\/p>\n James Landrith, The Multiracial Activist<\/p>\n Jerry Goldman, The Oyez Project<\/p>\n Ellen Miller, Sunlight Foundation<\/p>\n Dane vonBreichenruchard, U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation<\/p>\n cc: Daniel P. Mulhollan, Director, Congressional Research Service September 17, 2010 The Honorable Charles E. SchumerChairman, Committee on Rules and Administration305 Russell Senate Office BuildingWashington, DC 20510 The Honorable Bob BennettRanking Member, Committee on Rules and Administration479 Russell Senate Office BuildingWashington, DC...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[60,9],"tags":[142],"class_list":["post-1657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters-to-government-agencies-signed-by-tma","category-advocacy-and-letters","tag-advocacy-letters"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89tuq-qJ","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Advocacy-Work.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3933,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1657\/revisions\/3933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Dr. James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress, Library of Congress
Robert C. Tapella, Public Printer of the United States, U.S. Government Printing Office<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"