Capitol Hill's Favorite Words Of '08
Energy, health and service were the hot topics for Congress in 2008, according to the Sunlight Foundation's Capitol Words, a site that converts members' statements in the Congressional Record into data. In the past year, the word, "energy" was either spoken on the House and Senate floor or inserted into the record's extended remarks over 50,000 times. "Health" came in second place at 41,000; "service" was third with 37,287. Rounding out the top 10 were "public," "oil," "report," "provide," "security," "country," and "percent."
Sunlight re-launched Capitol Words on Thursday to include expanded capabilities for succinctly displaying what issues lawmakers address on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. To give citizens this at-a-glance view of the inner workings of Congress, the site also provides tag clouds, geographical "heat maps" and charts to show with greater granularity the words most frequently used by Congress as a whole, by state delegation or by lawmaker.
According to the site, the most vocal lawmakers include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.; Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.; Minority Leader Mitch McConnell; Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. Some of the quietest were Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark.; Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.
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