In addition to databases like GovTrack and C-SPAN’s Congressional Chronicle, many new tools are coming online and are reinventing transparency in politics. The Library of Congress and the Government Printing Office have led the way with massive bulk data releases made available on their websites.

Now, a popular online database used to track congressional votes, bills and members has gotten a massive update. ProPublica was behind the creation of Represent, an old database with many new features. According to ProPublica’s marketing director Cynthia Gordy, the newly designed Represent database:

Is the continuation of the New York Times’ Inside Congress database – which ProPublica has taken over, starting today – that focused on bills and votes. Under ProPublica’s management, the database has been renamed and expanded to include profile pages for each elected official with their latest votes, legislation they support, and statistics about their voting: how often a member of the House or Senate votes against a majority of her party colleagues, for example, and the percentage of votes they missed.

Here is an article with a detailed breakdown of the new updates:

As of this writing and since late Friday night, Congress has been unable to reach agreement to fund the federal government, resulting in a shutdown. What better time to keep track of what legislators are up to? Regular visitors to Represent, our interactive database that tracks Congress, will notice that over the past six months the…