Congresspedia: Where Wonks and "Regular Citizens" Work Collaboratively

by Conor Kenny — March 26, 2007 - 6:20pm
  • Topics: Citizen Journalism, Politics
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    The Congresspedia project on SourceWatch has been receiving a lot of great edits lately by students, wonks and people who are simply interested in policy and politics (and have a modem). As the "managing editors" of the site, we keep an eye on the edits made to articles to do fact checking, help citizen editors and watch for vandalism. One editor, Lczikowsky, caught our eye by systematically expanding the page on minimum wage legislation to include state-level legislative proposals in 30 states, resulting in an in-depth article that's a great resource for anyone researching the minimum wage. Here's Lczikowsky to discuss his contributions in more detail:

    I am Leon Czikowsky, a research specialist for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. I am interested in tracking minimum wage legislation across the nation and observing that there is movement on this issue across the nation. It is not an issue that affects just one or a few states, as some have argued in an attempt to prevent their state from moving alone on minimum wage legislation. I wish to find and track minimum wage increase legislation within each state. I have updated the page regarding the minimum wage with this information as I find it.

    Some of the interesting bill proposals which Lczikowsky has added include:

    • A measure in the Connecticut House which would raise the state’s minimum wage to $11.65 by 2011.
    • A measure in the Alaska House which would set the state’s minimum wage at the higher of $8/hr. or $1 above the federal minimum wage.
    • A measure in the Kansas House which would set the minimum wage at $7.25 and tie future adjustments to changes in the Consumer Price Index (Kansas currently has the nation’s lowest minimum wage @ $2.65/hr.).

    Be sure to check out Lczikowsky’s work, and post a note on his user talk page if you'd like to collaborate with him on future editing endeavors. To Lczikowsky and all the other citizen editors on the site, keep up the good work!