MobileActive.org

Open Congress, Just a Call Away (Brought to You by the Sunlight Foundation)

The Sunlight Foundation, always pushing the envelop on tech and open government in the United States and increasingly worldwide, launched a new service today:  Call to Congress.  The number 1-888-907-6886 (tol-free in the US) allows anyone to learn about how a lawmaker is voting on bills and raising their money for re-election. As the announcement states:  "Being connected with your lawmakers' Capitol Hill offices and getting details on legilsation is now as easy as ordering pizza..." 

The service is essentially an interactive-voice responce system that allows a user to navigate a menu tree to search a member of Congress by postal code.  Lawmakers can add their biography, their top campaign donors, recent votes and allows a caller to be transferred directly to the Reprentative's office.  The service also provides bills currently under consideration in both the House and the Senate, including upcoming votes. The service is available in English and Spanish with the goal of bridging the online/mobile divide increasingly common in the US where especially ethnic and lingual minorities access the web via their mobile devices.  Call to Congres is at its core powered by Twilio, a cloud communications API. Technically, the Sunlight team reports, is Twilio, a cloud communications API. More technical details about the service are on this blog post but in essence, here is how it works (paraphrasing the post mentioned)