The Senate's four goals for immigration reform

By Erica Werner of the Associated Press, republished by Yahoo! News:

Senators reach agreement on immigration reform

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of leading senators has reached agreement on the principles for a sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, including a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants already in this country.
...
According to documents obtained by The Associated Press, the senators will call for accomplishing four goals:

—Creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here, contingent upon securing the border and better tracking of people here on visas.

—Reforming the legal immigration system, including awarding green cards to immigrants who obtain advanced degrees in science, math, technology or engineering from an American university.

—Creating an effective employment verification system to ensure that employers do not hire illegal immigrants in the future, including requiring prospective workers to verify legal status and identity through a non-forgeable electronic system.

—Allowing more low-skill workers into the country and allowing employers to hire immigrants if they can demonstrate they couldn't recruit a U.S. citizen; and establishing an agricultural worker program.

The principles being released Monday are outlined on just over four pages, leaving plenty of details left to fill in. What the senators do call for is similar to Obama's goals and some past efforts by Democrats and Republicans, since there's wide agreement in identifying problems with the current immigration system. The most difficult disagreement is likely to arise over how to accomplish the path to citizenship.

Read more

I'm excited to see where this goes. I particularly like the fact that this is a bipartisan movement and the idea of awarding green cards to immigrants who obtain an advanced S.T.E.M. degree from an American university. What are your thoughts?

Washington Post summary of Obama's plan to reduce gun violence

This is the kind of thing I like to see: Within the Washington Post story "Obama unveils gun-control proposals," the writers have linked to the very documents they're reporting about. To me, it's a mark of good reporting when the journalists make their sources clearly known, and especially when they make the same sources they referenced available to the public. Unfortunately, you can't make a live interviewee available to the public in the same way, but it's always a nice touch to link to documents when you can. This transparent, reader-empowering journalism is the kind of example I want to follow. Well done, WP!

White House: Gun Violence Reduction Executive Actions: Includes a description of the documents and other related links. Check it out!

Linking to documents can be a long, painstaking process depending on the story you're working on, but personally I think it's worth the extra time. It really proves whether you've done your homework, which improves your credibility and the trust between you and the reader. I've published a couple data-driven stories myself where I purposefully took the extra time to link to or clearly cite my sources:

"A few of the oldest, longest continuous things in the LDS Church," published July 12, 2012, on the front page of section C in Salt Lake City's Deseret News.

"Relic of the past: Home of future legends," published February 18, 2011, in the double truck (meaning it was the main article of the edition) of BYU's Daily Universe. ...Back when it was a daily paper.

(If you're interested, you can check out my portfolio for more of my stuff.)

Watch full Obama-Romney debate

By now, there are dozens of analyses and summaries of the presidential debate available from various media outlets. I will not provide another here. Instead, I invite you to watch (or read) the debate yourself, in full, and come to your own conclusions. My advice is that you at least watch the closing statements.

Oct. 3, 2012 Presidential Debate at the University of Denver, provided by 2012 Election Central:
http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/2012/10/video-watch-the-first-presidential-debate-from-the-university-of-denver/

Topics Covered: (times are approximate because they include the mediator's questions)
00:00-22:40		The economy: job creation and taxes
22:40-36:20		The economy: national deficit, taxes and Medicaid
36:20-47:04		The economy: entitlements (social security, Medicare)
47:04-52:10		The economy: level of federal regulation on the economy
52:10-1:09:08		Health care: Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")
1:09:08-1:14:20		The role of government (in general)
1:14:20-1:20:16		The role of government in education
1:20:16-1:24:19		What would you do about gridlock in legislature?
1:24:19-1:26:42		Obama's closing statement
1:26:42-1:28:50		Romney's closing statement

Watch for the next debate Oct. 11 between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan!

Brush up on Biden's and Ryan's political histories:
Joe Biden, WhiteHouse.gov
Paul Ryan, GovTrack.us

FOIA Online now live

Today, the Sunshine in Government Blog announced the launch of a new system that it says should help government agencies keep better track of record requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and "make the FOIA process more efficient."

I highly encourage anyone who has ever used FOIA or plans to use it in the future to read more about the new system, FOIA Online, on the blog: "FOIA Online goes live; new tool to track FOIA requests, responses."

Or you could go straight to FOIA Online: foiaonline.regulations.gov/foia/action/public/home

Who is Paul Ryan? Romney's 2012 running mate

	Republican Serving 7th term in the House representing the 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin Chairman of the House Budget Committee Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, "which has jurisdiction over tax policy, Social Security, health care and trade laws." Member of the Subcommittee on Health
Paul Ryan

For more information, see my sources: paulryan.house.gov and govtrack.us

Do you know your congressman? And other legislative questions

Find My Congressman

www.govtrack.us
A great, easy-to-use resource for checking on your local senator or representative- or any senator or representative, for that matter. This site includes links to bills each member of Congress is currently sponsoring (as well as a history of bills he or she has sponsored in the past) and the bill's status, the congressman's political views as compared to the views of all other senators or representatives, how long they've served in their position, what committees they're on and their voting record- how often they miss a vote.

Track a Bill

thomas.loc.gov
This site includes the full text of each bill, a list of related bills, the names of Congress members who are co-sponsoring the bill, and the bill's status, including amendments made. You can also subscribe to updates on the bill's status via email through an RSS feed.
Tweet

FOIA.gov

Check this out: foia.gov