In a world where we’ll soon be able to order a pie by tweeting an emoji at Pizza Hut, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer saw a problem. Some of the most basic necessities could be summoned with a few taps on a smartphone, but the details of the government’s daily activity were buried in PDF calendars and email listservs. So the 75-year-old Maryland representative, who “loves” his iPhone, uses its weather and map apps and “Googles things throughout the day,” commissioned an app.
Named Whip Watch, the iOS app premieres today and generates push notifications for new jobs, calendar updates and votes cast on the House floor. Free to the public, it informs you in real time what segments of a bill are up for discussion and how many people have voted for it. It also displays transcribed speeches from representatives and allows you to share them directly on social media. At its essence, it’s a tool to track exactly what the House is up to at any time of the day.
As his communications director, Katie Grant, puts it, Hoyer’s position gave him the opportunity to share that information with lobbyists, the press and out-of-state activists.
“In that unique role,” she says, “we can offer the American people an immediate view into what’s happening on the House floor then and there.”
The phrase “the American people” applies loosely here. Hoyer’s efforts to package the House goings-on into smartphone push alerts may be much appreciated by those within a 10-mile radius of Capitol Hill, but difficult to decode for the average citizen.
In testing its beta version earlier this month, I was reminded of Silicon Valley’s most classic pitfall: It can design technologically solid products, but not always ones that normal people can use or understand. Though the app’s easy-to-navigate design follows basic Apple interface rules (like pulling down on a smartphone screen for updates, or favoriting posts to save them for later), its language is less straightforward. Open an ALL CAPS “Floor Update” push notification, for instance, and your screen will conjure a sea of wonky legislature-speak (like the example below).
Rather than organize notifications by issue — so you could sign up to receive updates only on, say, net neutrality or human trafficking — enabling push alerts means your phone buzzes every time something happens on the floor. Which is a lot. Notifications specify the topic of debate and — when you swipe them open from your home screen — display the name, page and line of a bill, without linking to a draft of it or translating that language into something meaningful. So unless activists are carrying around 300-page drafts of legislation in their sustainable tote bags, these notifications might not do any good.
Hoyer says that at the very least, people might engage more with their representatives.
“Frankly, what they’ll be able to understand is: There’s an amendment coming out that says X, Y and Z is going to be considered,” he says. “‘I’m not sure I understand that. Let me call my representative.’”
Despite its insider-y quality, open-data advocates feel Hoyer’s app is a step in the right direction, and that many more people care about the minute details of House dealings than we think.
“Anytime that they’re publishing more information along these lines, that is good,” Daniel Schuman, founder of the Congressional Data Coalition, told Yahoo News. “Look at the number of people who watch what’s happening on C-SPAN.”
Josh Tauber, an open-government activist who created a site named GovTrack, points out that any forthcoming data from government officials is welcome, especially given their slow record in the area of adopting tech.
“I’ve been asking Congress for a spreadsheet listing every bill for 14 years, for instance,” he told Yahoo News. “And they still haven’t quite made that available.”
Now, thanks to Hoyer’s app, Tauber can receive alerts for every little detail of a bill’s evolution on the House floor — even if he, and the American public, don’t always fully understand what they’re about.
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