Access to Congressional Bills as Social Capital

In my last blog post I talked about the historical tradition of political discourse among Americans and the current debate on health care reform. Today, I want to talk about this same topic in the context of an article written by Wise and Schauer entitled "Legal Information as Social Capital."

Social capital theory posits that the network of relationships formed in organizations has inherit value much like human capital or physical capital. For example, the relationships formed in a local neighborhood watch group can be leveraged to organize an efficient response to a local natural disaster. Similarly, a dense network of intertwined social relationships can promote the development of social norms and self-policing that facilitate the formation of trust and knowledge-sharing necessary for collaboration. Interestingly, Wise and Schauer suggest that social capital can be developed as a result of access to legal information.

Wise and Schauer argue that "[o]ne of the various mechanisms that can be used to produce social capital is shared knowledge, especially shared knowledge about government and its operations. Legal information, the written record of society’s shared official efforts, can, if widely known, serve as the knowledge base for collective effort and thus as a causal agent for the development of social capital."

Which brings me back to the current debate regarding the proposed health care reform bill. Wouldn't it be nice if we all could actually read the proposed bill for ourselves instead of relying on information (and in some cases misinformation) from the media as our primary source and, after reading the bill, have an intelligent civil discourse regarding the bill with our fellow Americans? Well, that's the intent behind OpenCongress.

OpenCongress is "a free, open-source, not-for-profit, and non-partisan web resource with a mission to make Congress more transparent and to encourage civic engagement." With OpenCongress you can track bills through the U.S. Congress and discuss them online, line-by-line, with others. I encourage everyone to sign up and read the actual text of H.R.3200 - America's Affordable Health Choices Act 2009. Then, armed with knowledge, share in that great American tradition of discourse and tell your senators, representatives and other fellow citizens what you think about it. Our nation will be better as a result of the social capital you help create.

Reference: Wise, V. J. and F. Schauer, "Legal Information as Social Capital," Law Library Journal, 99(2), 2007.