Maybe you are like me and you missed the latest hearing on the state vaccination bill. So you go looking for the webcast online. But first you have to figure out the right committee and where that committee likes to store its videos online.
Now, Californians can go to Digitaldemocracy.org, a video search engine of sorts, to view all videos of Assembly and state Senate committee hearings.
The site allows visitors to search for hearings by word, phrase, speaker, bill or committee. It is the result of a collaboration between Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy, a think tank at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and headed by former Republican lawmaker Sam Blakeslee.
Newsom, who says he will run for governor in 2018, told USA Today:
With mobile, social and cloud trends, there s this ubiquity of information, and yet government still operates with the default of secrecy. I want to make government as smart as Google.
Currently the site has a week s delay in between the live hearing and when the video is posted, reported the Associated Press.
Digital Democracy is expected to expand to other topics, such as campaign finance and lobbying information, committee membership and voting records, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Above: Gavin Newsom in 2009. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
