Gateway to Gov - Research and Discussion Blog

It might seem like a random tax code but its actually very important. On August 6th 2007, the IRS granted us 501(c)(3) Public Charity status! We found out on Thursday and we’re thrilled to announce it to everyone!

Gateway to Gov, Inc. is now a federally recognized public good corporation. In our petition to the IRS, we have legally established the following:

Part IV, Narrative Description of Activities: This organization will establish and maintain a website dedicated to promoting civic discussion and enhancing communication between constituents and their elected representatives. This organization is completely non-partisan and will not endorse candidates or participate in lobbying or issue advocacy. This organization will provide a platform for a wide-range of civic discussion, but as the host will remain completely neutral and will not endorse specific candidates, political parties or legislation.

Many thanks to my fellow co-founders and huge thank you to Fran Panich, our *fantastic* accountant, for her filing assistance!

This is my first real post in this blog. This blog was established to document the ongoing progress of the Gateway to Gov civic platform. The platform itself is described in the draft overview document (draft) and on the Gateway to Gov Wiki. Inspired by the events of the past days and in response to repeated requests by my fellow organizers, I’ve decided to begin actively posting to this blog as well.

I spent the last weekend in Austin, Texas attending the We Are All Actors workshop, which was sponsored by The League of Technical Voters and Texas Forums, a initiative of the LBJ Library. Silona Bonewald, Betty Sue Flowers and Taylor Willingham did an excellent job of conceptualizing, organizing and facilitating this enjoyable and insightful gathering. While a bit non-traditional in respect to structure, the event gathered together an amazing collection of civic-minded individuals and it was a pleasure to have had the opportunity to attend.

In particular I enjoyed meeting:

• Tim Erickson, Forum Development Director for E-Democracy.org. Over the course of several meals we discussed the similarities and differences between the Gateway to Gov project and E-Democracy. This is the first time we had met in person and I look forward to our continued dialogue.
• Don Shafer, VP of the Texas Association of Nonprofit Organizations, has offered to play a role in establishing a Gateway Beta in Austin. Don has had extensive engineering experience and currently serves at the CTO for the Athens Group, Inc., a software development company he co-founded. Drawing from his experience in the non-profit and public-sector, he feels that the Texas legislators, both on a state and federal level, would be quite receptive and open to the Gateway concept.
• Joshua Gay, Campaigns Manager for the Free Software Foundation, has extensive knowledge of online legislative data. He and I worked together on Sunday, doing research and documentation on the various federal budget data that is available, in particular the way in which the budget is presented by the executive branch, reviewed by appropriations committees (and subcommittees), then voted on.
• Kathy Mitchell, Internet Advocacy Manager of the Southwest Office of the Consumer’s Union, is a very interesting, highly articulate individual with extensive experience with the legislative process. She seems like she would be an excellent person to discuss ways in which constituents could effectively participate in the legislative process.
• Grady Seale, Director of Software Architecture at The New York Times, took an interest in our platform and expressed a personal desire to discuss the concept further. I briefly mentioned a number of different ways that the NYTimes (or any other web site) might integrate the grassroots, citizen-originating content - top issues, legislative support statistics, into their website.
• Sharron Rush, Executive Director of Knowbility, a group that advocates for accessible media for disabled individuals, discussed the importance of designing civic and governmental websites for maximum accessibility.

I also enjoyed speaking with Hunter Ellington, Brad Fitzpatrick, founder of LiveJournal, Tantek Çelik, founder of MicroFormats (who turned to me on Saturday afternoon and said “we need to get these ideas online” [paraphrasing a bit]) and many others, whom I will mention in subsequent blog entries. Many thanks again to Silona, Betty Sue and Taylor for putting this event together, I look forward to continuing the conversation with everyone from the workshop!

Welcome to the Gateway to Gov development blog. This blog will provide ongoing updates intended for those interested in discussing and/or participating in the design and development of a common civic platform.