4. Legitimating Policy Choices
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Published
by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA), the Federal
Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and
notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and
other presidential documents. This website provides a searchable database of
current and archival editions of the Federal Register. Additionally, this
website provides visitors the opportunity to sign up to receive the table of
contents of the <I>Federal Register</I> daily. This Web site is
maintained by the U.S. Government Printing Office
.
According
to the U.S. Government Printing Office Web site, the Code of Federal Regulations
(CFR) is the “codification of the general and permanent rules published in the
Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal
Government. It is divided into fifty titles that represent broad areas subject
to Federal regulation. Each volume of the CFR is updated once each calendar
year and is issued on a quarterly basis.”
Regulations.gov
provides citizens and interested organizations the ability to search for and
provide comments on proposed federal regulations applicable to all Federal
agencies. This Web site is part of the
The
White House Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) assists the president in overseeing the preparation of the
federal budget and supervises executive branch agencies. The OMB evaluates the
effectiveness of agency programs, policies, and procedures, assesses competing
funding demands among agencies, and sets funding priorities in accordance with
the president’s spending plans. “OMB’s role is to help improve administrative
management, to develop better performance measures and coordinating mechanisms,
and to reduce any unnecessary burdens on the public.”
More
information on Congressional voting, including roll call votes, can be found at
the Library of Congress’s THOMAS
legislative Web site (see Chapter 2 for more detail on THOMAS); Congress Merge and C-Span .
Additionally, Americans for
Democratic Action, Project
Vote Smart , American Conservative
Union , and the League of Conservation Voters
, among others (including Congressional Quarterly), include analysis of
congressional voting records and calculate ideology scores for members of
Congress.