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Posted by foxfoxx 7 hours ago

Show HN: Govbase – Follow a bill from source text to news bias to social posts(govbase.com)
Govbase tracks every bill, executive order, and federal regulation from official sources (Congress.gov, Federal Register, White House). An AI pipeline breaks each one down into plain-language summaries and shows who it impacts by demographic group.

It also ties each policy directly to bias-rated news coverage and politician social posts on X, Bluesky, and Truth Social. You can follow a single bill from the official text to how media frames it to what your representatives are saying about it.

Free on web, iOS, and Android.

https://govbase.com

I'd love feedback from the community, especially on the data pipeline or what policy areas/features you feel are missing.

133 points | 62 commentspage 3
cyanydeez 3 hours ago|
One would, naively assume, there's some skew that slowly happens between the source text and the social posts.

In reality, the social posts no longer need to do anything but lie about whatever the title might mean.

foxfoxx 3 hours ago|
Right and the goal with Govbase is to show that disconnect in plain view. Hold representatives accountable to their actions against their words having them right next to each other.
seany 4 hours ago||
What's the recommended way to consume this with other ai? What kind of api is available?
sourcegrift 6 hours ago||
If bluesky is included no reason to not include mastodon, threads, instagram,
foxfoxx 6 hours ago||
Understandable. Our priority right now is politician and agency posts though and these accounts are just not very active on mastodon or threads. We can look further into it and another comment mentioned this too.
verdverm 6 hours ago||
There are two parts here

1. Platforms politicians, governments, and media

2. Platforms which have an open (and free?) API

Bluesky seems to be the only one covering both, though less coverage on #1 than others, minus Mastodon

measurablefunc 5 hours ago||
Some of the headlines do not make sense, e.g. https://govbase.com/story/pvxDaH9fXqXUj8yu9Plc. But overall I think this is a great idea.
foxfoxx 5 hours ago|
Yes I just noticed this bug today where there is some character limit impacting story headlines. I appreciate the feedback and will be looking into it today.
nonameiguess 4 hours ago||
Feels a bit strange to use or at least not what I was expecting. I'm not sure having a "feed" the way it does is even appropriate, but assuming that's what it will be, so be it. The titles, however, read like headlines even under the "Policy" tab, and it isn't until clicking through that I can see the title of the bill in question and some brief description of it. I was expecting something more like a list of bills with outbound links to discussions and press releases where they may be.

I'm not sure the bullet points make a lot of sense on the impacts, either. The first one right now is a bill to change security rules for hospitals and healthcare systems that offer remote logins to retrieve patient details. You only find that's what it is by scrolling all the way to the bottom and finally reading the summary, but first you see a list of impacted parties and it highlights people with chronic illnesses and tribal members. I think I at least understand the logic of the first one, assuming chronically ill log into patient portals more often than healthier people, but it feels somehow facile, like saying a bill about highway maintenance affects drivers more than non-drivers. No shit. That isn't really an insight and shouldn't be above the actual content of the bill.

The "source information" is also all the way at the bottom even though, personally, it's what I would care about the most. And it has no links at all. You can look up the bill number and find it in the congressional database, but why not include a direct link? The news snippets link to the sources they came from. Why not the bills themselves?

So actually, I can see now there is a link to the bill itself. It's just all the way at the bottom and not part of the source summary, whereas the news summaries are tiles that also act as links all on their own. I guess the question is why make that different and why put the link I most care about all the way at the bottom beneath all of the information? Not gonna lie, though. I almost hesitate to ask because I fear the answer is there is no known reason. You asked an AI to put together a page and this is what it did. There is no knowable "why" and even though you're publishing this as if it's your product being created based on your design decisions, it isn't.

foxfoxx 3 hours ago|
So policy feeds are dynamic news headlines because no one really wants to click on or understands:

"Making further consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes."

This is similar to how most people don't want to read the raw source bill text which is why it's at the bottom. The reason policies aren't direct links to congress.gov is because I've spent more time than most on congress.gov and the federal register and on one wants to do that.

My first commit on this project was Feb 22, 2025 so I'm sure you're happy to find out there is plenty of "why" to my answers and that these are all my design decisions.

riteshyadav02 6 hours ago||
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cwoodyard 6 hours ago||
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xnx 6 hours ago|
Well intentioned, but very naive.
legitas 6 hours ago||
I agree but what's your reasoning? Politico pro subs or just generally that no one cares?
foxfoxx 6 hours ago||
We're early stage, but I believe there's a space between news and actual policy that no one's filling well. If you can show people that their representatives are making their lives better or worse, with real policy behind it, they'll care.

Right now, too many people are consuming misinformation from sources they believe are legitimate, and increasingly from social media where real people are getting their news. We need to connect the policy, the personal impact ("you're losing your insurance because of X"), the news, and what politicians are actually saying, all in one place, to bring real facts to the misinformation and make government more transparent.