App Review: Congress

Posted by Renee in Android Apps, Utilities on Jun 4th, 2010 | one response

I first heard about the Congress app from AndroidAndMe blog, where they wrote:

Sunlight Labs, an open-source community of developers and designers aimed at opening up government to make it more transparent, accountable, and responsible, released an Android application entitled Congress, which is aimed at getting Android users more involved in government. Currently in version 2.2, Congress allows users to find and call their elected officials using their location and read the latest bills and laws that have gone through or are currently going through the U.S. Congress.

I like to keep up with the news and local elections, and I also think it’s important to keep up with what our elected officials do after they get elected – when they’re making important decisions that affect us. What legislation do they introduce? Have they been in the news lately? How do I contact them when I want to weigh in? Well, this app help you stay on top of all of that!

The interface is intuitive to navigate: from the homescreen, you can read up on the latest laws passed and introduced, or search for your legislators using your GPS location, state, zip code, or the legislator’s name. From the legislator’s page, you can view their profile, news, tweets, and videos. There are also buttons to call the senator or representative’s office, visit his or her website, and read up on the bills he or she has sponsored. There are even more goodies in the menu on the legislator’s page, which I’ll let you discover when you download it – and I think everyone should.

Click the images to enlarge the Screen Captures

The pros of the Congress app include the intuitive navigation and ability to quickly determine who your senators and congresswomen & men are, the ease with which you can access the various pieces of information like new laws and a legislator’s sponsored bills, and being able to contact the legislator’s office or tweet directly from the app (twitter integration settings are under the twitter tab).

The only con I can think of is the lack of searchability – you basically browse all of the laws and they aren’t searchable by keyword or bill number yet. However, a developer told me by email (after I emailed Sunlight Labs using the handy built-in “Feedback” feature in the app’s menu) that they are planning to include additional search functionality in the next version.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars, and I highly recommend that you get this app to help you stay engaged with your representatives in our federal government!

UPDATE 6/5: The latest version of the Congress app includes a search by bill number, and I also just figured out there is a capability to add a legislator shortcut to the homescreen.

UPDATE 7/28: The Congress app is now out of Beta and they have updated features based on user feedback.