Web site tracks congressional, presidential priorities

AUSTIN, Texas — As a new Congress prepares to take office, a powerful online tool from University of Texas at Austin political scientists can help answer questions about lawmakers' shifting focus over time, differences between Republican and Democratic priorities and whether wave elections correlate with policy changes in Washington. You must have JavaScript enabled and the Flash 8 plugin installed to view this content. The Policy Agendas Project database allows journalists, scholars and interest groups to easily track and compare the issues that presidents and members of Congress have taken up since 1947 and to assess how those actions reflected the mood of the country. The interface lets users sift through dozens of issues and sub-issues — health care, the environment, taxes — to look at the topics leaders dealt with in congressional hearings, new laws, executive orders and State of the Union addresses, as well as public opinion about problems facing the nation. "The study of public policy was historically plagued by poor information. We wanted to overcome that so scholars and citizens could take a more systematic look at what happens in Washington," says Government Professor Bryan Jones, the J.J. "Jake" Pickle Chair in Congressional Studies, who developed the database with funding from the National Science Foundation. "Our datasets help you understand what goes on in Congress when policy change is seriously being considered," says Samuel Workman, an assistant professor of government who works with the project.