Whenever an important new bill arises in Congress, it helps to get an overview of the lobbying landscape. Who's for and against it, and why? Unless you're steeped in D.C. politics, that can take a lot of time and effort to figure out.
Yesterday the nonprofit organization MAPLight.org debuted another useful tool that could offer this crucial context more quickly and easily -- an application programming interface that provides "live, up-to-date feeds of companies', organizations' and interest groups' positions in support of, or opposition to, key bills in Congress."
In other words, this Bill Positions API is a tool that news organizations (or anyone) can use to examine lobbying and other political positioning information. Even more importantly, you can use it build your own online or mobile experience of this data, focus on bills of special interest to your coverage area, etc.
MAPLight.org explains how it works: "For a given organization, the API returns which bills the organization took a position on, the position they took (i.e., support or oppose), and citations of publications MAPLight.org used to determine its position. For a given bill, the service returns organizations that took a position and the position they took, with citation."
Currently the API's database includes information on bills from the 110th and 111th sessions of Congress and some from the 109th and the California State Legislature (2003-2004). Is not totally comprehensive, however. MAPLight.org had to make some judgment calls.
"We do not attempt to research every piece of legislation," the site says. "Resolutions for commemorative postage stamps or National Life Insurance Awareness Month, for example, will not have support or opposition in our database."
Using the API requires some geek skills -- the ability to parse JSON or XML. To take the API for a test drive, create a MAPlight.org user account, log in and register to receive an API key. Then check out the API documentation.
