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Tracking Data Visualizations in Congress with Bill Gray
937 Plays1 year ago
William Gray is the guy behind Floor Charts, the website and Twitter feed that documents all things graphic in the US Congress. During the day, Bill oversees the strategic communications efforts at R Street and manages its growing Communications team, including overseeing the public relations, digital and events units. He joined the organization in 2020. Previously, William was communications director at Issue One, the leading cross partisan political reform group in Washington, where he helped launch and executive produce the first conservative political reform podcast, Swamp Stories. Prior to Issue One, he managed press and negotiated news partnerships as the media relations specialist for the Center for Public Integrity, one of the oldest nonprofit investigative newsrooms in the country; and was a producer at C-SPAN, delivering daily public affairs programming and coverage of Congress and the White House to viewers around the world.
Check out more links, notes, transcript, and more at the PolicyViz website.
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Speaker
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Meet Bill Gray and the World of Congressional Floor Charts
00:01:12
Speaker
Welcome back to the PolicyBiz podcast. I am your host, John Schwabisch. Have you ever wondered about those charts and graphs and exhibits that members of U.S. Congress bring to the House floor or to the Senate floor? They have the big posters sitting behind them on foam board.
00:01:29
Speaker
or they have a snowball that they hold in the well of Congress. Well, if you have not checked out the floor charts Twitter feed that's been around for several years now, you really should because the guy behind it, who you may not know, the single guy behind it, Bill Gray has been collecting screenshots
00:01:48
Speaker
of members of Congress showing their charts, their graphs, their exhibits, their data visualizations, their diagrams, their photographs for the last several years. And so I'm very excited to finally be able to have Bill on the show to talk about the work that he's done to pull this great resource together, how it started, how he does it, and what interests him about these different ways of visualizing data in Congress
00:02:17
Speaker
on the floor of the House and the Senate. So I'm going to turn it right over to our conversation. So here's my chat with Bill Gray, the author behind floor charts. And I hope you'll really enjoy this week's conversation on the policy vis podcast. Hey, Bill, we did it. We got together at last. It's been so long. Good to see you. How are you?
00:02:40
Speaker
Hey, John, it's great to see you. Yeah, it feels it's been basically a year where we've been punting calendars back and forth, being like, when is there not a crisis? When are we not on vacation? When is there not a flood or leak or Lord knows what else? Right? It's getting hurt. Kids getting sick. Oh, man.
Bill's Background and the Birth of FloorCharts
00:02:56
Speaker
Well, it's great to see you because it has been, it has been a while and excited to, uh, to talk all things comms, policy, floor charts, all the, all the good stuff.
00:03:05
Speaker
So, you know, I usually ask people when I do these interviews to talk a little bit about themselves. But what's interesting is when I do that, as most people know, you know, Sarah Smith, they know who Sarah Smith is. They just, you know, maybe don't know their background, right? But interestingly, I'm not sure most people like know the guy behind floor charts. So this is like, for many people, like the introduction to the guy behind floor charts. So yeah, so maybe just like,
00:03:33
Speaker
who you are, where you came from, what you're doing now, and then we can talk about all the four chart stuff.
00:03:40
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. So first off, floor charts is me. It's not 27 people. I do feel like because I never sleep, people are like, oh, somebody, the floor charts responded. And I was like, no, it was me. So yes. So you and I met way back when, when I kicked this crazy project off in 2012, when I was a night producer at C-SPAN, just my day job was watching and producing the house and Senate constantly.
00:04:04
Speaker
I'll get into more the background later but basically that intersection of like tumblers high point with news is interest and then twitter being the place like anybody who loved infographics anybody who loves charts you found yourself on online platform you know you me robert karo like just being like that newspaper chart.
Bill's Role at R Street Institute and Digital Communication Evolution
00:04:23
Speaker
Is no good why did we make a chart of that or what was congress just doing and your own cbo background it was like oh this is just cool right like we found where after high school after college in the work world you found a bunch of nerds who kinda wanted to talk about nerd things.
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Right. Basically. So yeah, like I said, like 2012 is when all this started. So we have 10 plus years of fun to cover. But for yeah, for those who don't know, like my name is Bill Gray, I live in DC, I work in policy communications, similar to you, right? Like,
00:04:55
Speaker
trying to take those great ideas and shrink them enough to be digestible right without missing the point. You know went from being a journalist and realizing that as much as I loved journalism and you know for me I came to DC explicitly to work for C-SPAN right like that wonderful place that everybody forgets exists sometimes because it's always on and that was the dream right like not to be the story just to like
00:05:20
Speaker
Absorb everything and then realized after a few years that i enjoyed talking about the work they were doing more than i enjoyed producing the work itself right and because for anybody doesn't know c-span it's not the house senate and white house it's also decades of interviews and books and like there's even like an award-winning miniature documentary of.
00:05:41
Speaker
Someone sculpting a blinkin's head in life size narrating his life as it ages like there's so much history that i was like i just gotta talk about this all the time right and you know howard mortman who's their communications director who is you know one of my idols he and i used to talk and he was just like you love doing what i do.
00:06:01
Speaker
almost more than you love journalism. And I was like, oh, that's really smart. I should just go talk about policy and journalism of these things much more. And so over 10 years, found myself eventually where I am now, which is I'm communications director for a growing think tank called the R Street Institute. Probably everybody knows us because Shoshana Weissman.
00:06:22
Speaker
of Twitter fame, Senator of East Virginia in all tongue and cheekness is our digital communications director and she's probably tweeting South Park memes at you to explain electricity policy today. We, you know, we love pirates and Star Wars and all the nerdy things in the world have a director of canine policy because we like dogs.
00:06:42
Speaker
And my day job is basically taking 30, 40 scholars worth of work and being like, how do we amplify for impact this kind of what we call policy victories at the margins of like, until Texas froze over a few years ago, did you think about where your electricity came from, right? You know, the youth vaping crisis and how do you balance harm reduction for adults with a youth vaping crisis, right?
Twitter's Decline and New Digital Strategies
00:07:06
Speaker
Like those kind of like deep
00:07:08
Speaker
Policy issues at the state and federal level don't always make the front page But when they do we're standing there like all right who wants to talk about a solution first mindset You know because our goal is not always perfect absolute, you know end of day. Nobody could write a better solution It's what is feasible that's gonna save lives what is feasible? It's gonna improve lives and then keep iterating during implementation right that kind of
00:07:32
Speaker
you know policy first you know politics second kind of agenda and it's fun to be there until you realize you're talking about flood insurance during hurricanes right electricity during freezes and that like every day you don't get the policy done there's real world impact on it right and so you know it bleeds it leads drives news and for us if you know and i feel like you're part of this and you know at the urban institute like
00:07:55
Speaker
policy is slow and change, but when it happens, it can be monumental, right? And impact. Um, so yeah, we've, we've got, I think a nine person communications events and digital team and it's different kind of fun every day. Great. So before we get into floor charts, I want to talk about the digital com strategy because floor chart lives in Twitter.
00:08:15
Speaker
Twitter, depending on your perspective, Twitter is dying, is dead, is whatever. But over the last 10 years, like the digital landscape has changed so tremendously. So the question's fairly general here, I guess, but like, where are you and your team thinking about digital comms now with this changing landscape?
00:08:34
Speaker
Yeah, so for those who don't know, and you probably do, John has a book called Elevate the Debate about policy comms. And I'm just flagging it because I bought this when it came out, and I give it to a lot of my communications team because our street, especially, we are a grass tops focused audience specifically. We are not grassroots, which means we left Facebook behind a long time ago, right? And so our digital lead, Shoshana Weisman, and I knew each other before I went to work at our street.
00:09:03
Speaker
uh and be her boss and it was always kind of two major platforms twitter and linkedin right like twitter because the the bar to entry was so low right every member of congress had a twitter account you know after hard work by twitter to make sure that that constituent policymaker communication bridge was built um and now you know she's trying every platform under the sun because for us
00:09:27
Speaker
especially because we also do state policy the ability for her to just get pinged by a state person to be like hey we've never encountered this policy problem can you guys help us do you know somebody who can help us and you know i can't say enough to people that you know if you had told me you know when i came to dc that you know a digital media director who loves to post south park memes
00:09:48
Speaker
was going to be invited to Utah and Colorado to sit down with policy teams and say, let's talk about occupational licensing and barriers to nurses crossing state lines to help during a pandemic. I would have been like, what? Who? That didn't cross the mental lexicon at the time.
00:10:06
Speaker
So, you know, I think we're on Twitter until basically the day it dies, right? But for us, it's kind of following the audience, right? Like, because, you know, the policy types, you know, there's posts, there's blue sky, right? There's all of these, and we're on all of them. But like, you know, I don't know if people know Daniel Schumann, formerly of Demand Progress, now over at Popbox Foundation.
00:10:28
Speaker
you know daniel schumann has been doing you know lion's share of work to make sure that all of those congressional experts all of those you know staff and members that if you're moving platform to platform he's creating those lists on every platform for you so that if you're that guy who really likes that cbo expert who does tweet
00:10:46
Speaker
You can find them again. And it's like the amount of work now to recreate the environment and the nerd circles you and I found ourselves in, right? Where, you know, it was funny. So one of the products are street did before I got there that still exists. Shoshana and one of our judicial experts did a database of like oral arguments, right? And things like that, that was searchable.
00:11:08
Speaker
and then axios puts out a story i think it was earlier this week maybe last week it was all about like how often the various people presenting the supreme court get interrupted and in an original twitter land you could have tweeted at the scholars you could have tweeted at the axios people and i guarantee you shoshana which she did would have founded like 24 hours someone called her and said
00:11:29
Speaker
You want our nerdy database? Why do you want our nerdy database, right? And now it's like, no, I've got to go find the story, find the emails, make it sound disarming that I'm actually interested in this really nerdy thing you did. And like, it's just another level of like, okay, the communications bridges aren't all built the same way, right? Because that's also, you know, for me, I mean, I found my jobs because of Twitter. I mean, I met my wife because of Twitter, right? Like, and the communication ecosystems,
00:11:57
Speaker
where like, I've worked for journalism, I've worked on the center left, I've worked on the center right, because I like the policies. And like Twitter, let me break those walls down for those people to be like, you know, you work in campaign finance, you work in, you know, harm reduction, you two should know each other, because you're both building coalitions, and you can learn things. And now nobody has time for Twitter, because algorithms busted, right? It's not it's not showing you things that you want to see anymore. And so it's like,
00:12:23
Speaker
You know, kind of that, and it sounds silly, that old school, I've got to go through my, literally my virtual Rolodex, or if you're us, probably a stack of business cards to be like, all right, who haven't I talked to in six months?
Documenting Congressional Charts: The FloorCharts Journey
00:12:33
Speaker
Cause I don't see him on Twitter anymore. Right? Like, and so yeah, I, I'm so sad that it is basically dying. And I, I count myself lucky that I only get harassment when basically a member of Congress tweets something that includes me and everyone doesn't like that member for that moment. Um,
00:12:50
Speaker
You know, but like LinkedIn like not the same thing and and how many of us, you know God bless LinkedIn for a lot of things want to say yes to every single person who friends us on LinkedIn You know, so we'll keep trying just like I'm sure you will you know and Hopefully with remote work these virtual platforms will catch up right to this kind of we're online we can do this more if the technology and the social community catches up and we stop, you know kind of
00:13:18
Speaker
hating the cesspools, right? Because for you and me, right, and everyone who's in, you know, again, like Robert Caro, kind of these data visualization communities, you know, when I started FloorCharts, there was another charts blog called I Love Charts that was basically just pictures of charts that they loved. And they had books off of this deal.
00:13:38
Speaker
Right. Like they used to invite guest people to like post for a week at a time. And, and it's just like, I'm not going to find that again. Right. Like, you know, WordPress doesn't have that discoverability mechanism. Tumblr has gone through multiple owners. So it's like, okay. Right. And it's like, what's the next thing? Right. And I still love Tumblr. I'm still on it, but like.
00:14:00
Speaker
When when i started i hit this really unique moments after the twenty twelve elections where tumblr was trying to really encourage discover ability and so when you signed up they would have this grid of like fifteen blogs based on your interest that you should immediately follow and.
00:14:19
Speaker
as somebody who apparently popped one that was like news politics government and like nerd i ended up in so many of these cross sections that within like the first year it was like twenty thousand followers and i and i was like i don't even know what to do with twenty thousand followers right when i'm just posting photos of like chuck grassley and a debt and deficit dragon
00:14:41
Speaker
But they liked it, right? And they wanted more. And now, if I were starting this from scratch, I wouldn't know where to begin, right? Because my view of, and I love doing floor charts, it is a passion project for real, but my view is that I am actually doing what the Library of Congress should be doing, right?
00:15:01
Speaker
you know and we'll get into this because we talk database but like archiving the photos that taxpayers pay for sourcing these things right because you can't always read the source material right and it's like it's not impossible and highly resource intensive but like so many times the point of the floor speech of the debate is actually the chart or the poster.
00:15:22
Speaker
Right. And I love that C-SPAN is the one archiving all of them, but like not everyone's going to be me and watch a whole lot of C-SPAN every day. Right. So, yeah, no, like I will follow you, John, whichever platform you choose to go to, you know, just be a podcast. Right. Yeah. Just be a podcast. I mean, yeah, I agree with everything you just said. I mean, for me personally, and I've written about this in other places. I mean, I'm not adding platforms. I'm just subtracting. I mean, and I think.
00:15:50
Speaker
To your point a little bit, I think there's a generational kind of, not gap, but there's a generational change. Like, I mean, I'm sure there's good database stuff on TikTok, but like, I'm not going to do that. I just, it's, it's really labor intensive. I've got a full time job. I've got kids. I've got other hobbies, right? Like, so, you know, maybe, maybe blue sky or, or I don't know a lot of threads, but like, I don't know, maybe there's other ones that there'll be a community, but so far I'm with you. I haven't heard of any of the friends that I've made.
00:16:17
Speaker
all through like in the database world through Twitter, you know, there's still every once in a while there'll be some little conversation on Twitter that pops up and be like, Hey, is anybody here? Like, am I just screaming into the ether? Like, and it's, it's true. It's just kind of, I think it's sad for a lot of us who were able to stay out of the, the muck and the, and the terribleness that can be on social media and just were able to use it for good.
00:16:43
Speaker
But having said all that, you did a very nice lead into floor charts. So I think first question is, do you just sit in front of your TV watching C-SPAN 24 hours a day? Because you said it's just you, which I don't know, I don't know how many listeners will be into, you know, how many listeners are like, wait, what? Like, it's like, it's one dude just doing this. It's not like a team or an AI or something. Like, so what is the process like?
00:17:11
Speaker
Yeah. So first off, anybody wants to do this with me for free, you're more than welcome to come on board. Right. And I've said it for years, but it's also like not being a coder, not being, you know, the most tech savvy, so to speak, right? Like, yeah, someone wants to figure out how to pull screenshots from C-SPAN with AI that accurately codes congressional bio IDs and like everything else, like come, come forward.
00:17:33
Speaker
Um, yeah, no, so it's interesting because you know, there's, I, I categorize floor charts and pre pandemic and then post pandemic, right? Pre pandemic floor charts. I had, I started my job at our street two days before the COVID-19 lockdown. Um, and, uh, was very blessed that basically when I was at C-SPAN, I had a four day work week in like an overnight shift because news happened at night, which meant I had three days off to just go be a nerd and like watch a lot of C-SPAN offline.
00:18:03
Speaker
Um, when I went to a small advocate and, and also a journalist Morgan between, right? Like these were not 24 seven jobs. I wasn't at the director level at the same way. So like leave work at work, right? Like go home, you know, with my, my girlfriend, now wife was at work, right? Like had some of those free times. Um, and also, you know, in that high moment of Twitter.
00:18:24
Speaker
Staffers were beginning to learn if we talk to him or let him know something is coming to the blog faster right or in my case because i was a reporter first follow the almost every congressional white house reporter on social media that i could write in part for my job as he spent but also in part because.
00:18:44
Speaker
These were the guys that, like, their literal job was being glued to the House and Senate
Visual Documentation and Data Visualization Community
00:18:48
Speaker
movement. So there were slow times, which is how floor charts got started. You know, these guys were being like, hey, look at what's happening on the floor. And if I didn't have C-SPAN on, I could be like, okay, I can turn it on. And like, now we're good. Nils Lesniewski is my reporter God that I still think and talk so much about. And one of those iconic moments was Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma,
00:19:10
Speaker
I'm got up on the senate floor and literally tore up a giant visual credit card of the nation's debt and said i'm done with the credit card and i say it was iconic because he did it i was out at dinner with my now wife and girlfriend who was a staffer on the hill at the time and.
00:19:28
Speaker
Every single version of reaching me, my phone rang, 50 million text messages, DMs. Everybody in that day had nothing better to do than to watch a senator be like, I'm shredding a credit card. And then, you know, probably not unironically, like two weeks later or so, C-SPAN Q&A, the long-form interview program.
00:19:48
Speaker
led with that moment for an interview with him, right? And then everybody who didn't watch House and Senate, but really was glued to that primetime programming was like, Hey, let's remind him it happened again. And I was like, Oh no, I know I'm very well aware, right?
00:20:02
Speaker
you know in some phenomenal ways this ecosystem bubble of like government staff including people like you right like the private sector nerds are what I call you know the public interest nerds right like who watch that sort of stuff and are like okay that's funny and I have to do this for my job anyway I'm going to tweet about it all kind of started intersecting into this world of like
00:20:24
Speaker
Okay, Congress, not always fun to watch, but in those moments, they were starting to realize more and more, the internet basically meme-ified a lot of Congress, right? And it just all hit that peak, right? Because the starting of floor charts was the week after the 2012 presidential elections, Dick Durbin went on the floor when they were talking about regulating five-hour energy drinks and those kinds of like, you know, brand new to the market sort of things.
00:20:52
Speaker
and he had a five-hour energy drink and Neils Lesniewski and Elise Foley at Huffington Post, Neils is a roll call, were tweeting back and forth that this existed and basically were asking each other, why is there no archive of all of these crazy things? And I was at home and was watching C-SPAN because I had nothing better to do and always had it on and was on Twitter
00:21:13
Speaker
And I literally just went to Tumblr and created senatecharts.tumblr.com, popped it up. I emailed Howard Mortman, our communications director at the time, and was like, FYI, I'm doing this. I know it's late at night, but do you guys want this, right? Like, does C-SPAN want to take this?
00:21:29
Speaker
And his response was like, no, like it's your thing. Go ahead. But in the kindness of his heart, and this is where C-SPAN really shines. C-SPAN always likes to support when regular people love to use its work, right? Like not in just a like, hey, cool story method, but like book TV. And when the bus used to go around, it was this kind of ecosystem of C-SPAN.
00:21:51
Speaker
And so, you know C-SPAN enjoyed the fact that like all of a sudden congressional reporters were like, there's an entire archive based on this so I'm going to go send this guy all the crazy charts, but I've been taking screenshots up for my entire life. And, you know, it was like, it was funny because in the first month.
00:22:08
Speaker
I had when the tumblr following increase i started getting messages being like can you post less on tumblr because my entire feed is you now. I was like oh wow i didn't even think about like basically feed dominating these thousand followers and blessedly you know tumblr is always had a schedule function kind of cute and right and like all of these things.
00:22:30
Speaker
But like, you know, in the world of floor charts, right? Like Twitter didn't exist. This would not have happened. Right? Like, because I had, I had, and not many people know this prior to floor charts, actually had a blog called overheard on C-SPAM, right? That was just watching all of these archival things, right? Like Ed Rollins, way back in Reagan's days, talking about defunding the department of education in front of a bunch of students, right? Like, or like,
00:22:55
Speaker
You know, um, Alfred Kahn, you know, uh, Jimmy Carter's D reg guy doing like a final exit interview with C span and just watching these things and being like, this is fascinating, but also all these policy conversations are cyclical. Right. You know, it was in my twenties and being like, all this is coming around again. Right. Um, and, and just, and just throwing these things up on a blog and being like, this is fascinating. We're like my favorite one. There is old school Batman hawking treasury bonds.
00:23:23
Speaker
um in the c-span library right and and every once in a while i'm like yo does anybody remember that this the government did this right like or the the big for people who don't work in in television right like those big kind of like you always hear about these trade association like big junkets in like vegas or other places new tv technology right like new digital technology these huge things um they used to be on at some of these they would do like game fake game shows with like tv executives
00:23:51
Speaker
there's one where like before CNN really got like got dominating like where they all were just dunking on Ted Turner right like all the other news executives and you're just watching Ted Turner pre the CNN domination just in this moment where you can see him kind of like being like oh I'm going to get back at you all but like I'll enjoy it and it's all just there right in this library of archival video and it's free
00:24:16
Speaker
Yeah. And, and like, you know, it was just kind of this moment where it was like, and there were followers on that blog, right. And it was fascinating that there were, but like, at the same time, like nowhere near the nexus of like funny image meets board reporters meets congressional staff realizing, Oh, I can, and this, this has been the policy communications getting back to the podcast. This has been the change.
00:24:41
Speaker
Congress and staff don't need earned media anymore, right? Like, you know, that direct to constituent or direct to whatever audience you want to speak to.
00:24:51
Speaker
The internet enabled that in a larger fashion, social media juiced it and they all realized, oh wait, right? Like I, all of a sudden can do something that will probably generate earned media in some fashion if I wanted to. But like, yeah, if you're flipping TV and all of a sudden you see, um, you know, Chuck Grassley with a giant dragon, right? And you're like, why? Like why is always the first thing.
00:25:17
Speaker
And, you know, and you will remember as I do, like John Stewart used to feed off this stuff, right? Like Rachel Maddow featured this. Once I got this going, she featured all of these things, right? Like television feeds off television sometimes. And so I will always give props to like Adam Sharp and the OG DC Twitter people for getting Congress engaged on Twitter and getting government engaged on Twitter. But, you know, the supercharging of like,
00:25:42
Speaker
you can't, not every story is going to earn some media, right? Like mixed with younger people in Congress controlling the levers of social media, right? Like the most viral moment to me that's positive.
Congressional Communication: Visual Aids and Social Media
00:25:54
Speaker
And then there's the funny moment, which was the snowball on the Senate floor, right? Exactly. But, you know, it was, I think last year, Sean Kasten, right? Member of Congress, his digital director of communications directors made hot for summer go viral.
00:26:11
Speaker
um in and and went and got earned media in every place you would imagine from like you know basically like teen vogue to all the tv programs because she had sean castan go up and do a little freestyle music-ing to the notion of like firk this federal agency helping solve climate change and it's this you know like 20 plus year old staffer who just realized
00:26:36
Speaker
I need this to be fun i need to make policy communications break through but in a way that was also unlike someone like me who is twitter first was like tiktok and visual and video first yeah right and and that kind of like evolution because all of a sudden it went from her
00:26:56
Speaker
Yeah, and I've met Amelia. Amelia no longer works for Sean Caston. But we got coffee, and I was just like, I have to give you huge props as a policy communicator because you leveraged trade publication to national publication to television an entire dialogue for weeks about hot-ferk summer.
00:27:17
Speaker
So it is interesting the way you describe that sort of growth because it reminds me of, of SNL, Saturday Live, like when like Andy Samberg sort of like figured out that like YouTube was going to be the thing and started making like these smaller, I mean, they went viral all of a sudden and it's just interesting how it took
00:27:37
Speaker
So long, I guess, for members of Congress to realize they had this, they could do the same thing, right? Like the same, they had the same power to build these visual, I don't want to say products, that's not the right word, but these, these visual moments, right? Where they could actually do a better job of communicating their data.
00:27:55
Speaker
You know, just briefly, like there's a house printing office, right? Like there's a government printing office, right? There's, there is like house creative services. And, you know, no one, I mean, C-SPAN actually has video from inside back. And I think I want to say late eighties, early nineties. Um, nowadays note, you can't get a camera inside, right? Of that sort of thing. But like there, there is this office that's, that members can say like, I need this printed, I need this designed, right? Or some of them can go to FedEx Kinko's or they're back in their district. But like,
00:28:21
Speaker
this this power does exist and it's actually funny because and i'm gonna pull it up in real time um here if i can find it real fast like the i actually had somebody on twitter again pointing to this moment right like where uh he uh tweeted at me and this is back in 2016 that he was reading a book uh by David McCullough and he was like hey did you know they had charts way back when i was like okay define way back when right because i've been watching a whole lot of c-span
00:28:49
Speaker
And he was like, no, like, and I'm going to like preview the, like read a bit of the passage, right? And it's, and I, and I forget what color book it is. I think it's half between the seas. And he, and it's the story, right? About like Senator Marcus Alonzo Henna delivering a speech, right? And, and the description of the chamber that is given is, the chamber was nearly full and all about were hung enormous maps and plans.
00:29:18
Speaker
One map of Central America and the Caribbean islands reached from the gallery railing to the floor, showed the location of every volcano active or extinct. And it's just this notion of like pre-camera, like pre-TV, they were doing this. They were using visual aids to drive the point home.
00:29:37
Speaker
And what basically happened thanks to C's band's cameras is all of a sudden the lights went on and the audience just exploded outward, right? And so yeah, I've never done the math and I will not do the math, but if you are a nerd and want to do the math, I'll let you. Like charts, self-describing floor charts is basically charts, props, and posters.
00:30:00
Speaker
Right, because it really does. Those are the easiest categories. Charts are minimal, right? Like they used to be more like we, we, Kent Conrad, you and I, you and I mentioned, right? Like there is a chart by Senator Chris Coons of Kent Conrad's rise, right? When PowerPoint became a thing and then the exponential increase of charts by Kent Conrad.
00:30:23
Speaker
Right. Like I think I counted what time you brought like 30 to the floor at once. Right. And I was just like, Oh, you're the budget guy. Like, but those were literally charts, right? Like line graphs and all of that sort of stuff. And now like the last most popular thing I posted on the blog, right? Was like.
00:30:41
Speaker
Ted Cruz with a photo of like China spying on you from a computer, right? Like, you know, like, um, you know, memes and photographs, right? Kind of took over. And even, I mean, the props are less, but those who, who are C-SPAN junkies, and if you're not, you'll, you'll Google this. There was a time, I forget which member it was, uh, came to the floor and literally built a fake Southern border wall, right? And like from Home Depot parts and talked about like, is there a way we can electrify it?
00:31:10
Speaker
And I was like, you literally just built a wall on the floor from Home Depot parts. There's definitely a joke to be made here about how many miles of the southern border of the wall has actually been built there, but I'm going to leave that alone. But it was one of those things where it's like, yes, it is less charts and data and more now photograph meme.
00:31:29
Speaker
and occasionally prop right i i think it was debbie watson shultz once once brought um like a bobblehead elephant to like showcase like the yes vote right just back and forth right but like you know uh and for those who don't know and and ask nils lasniewski right like nils is the dean of these sorts of things there are rules about what you can bring to the floor what you can't bring to the floor right and
00:31:51
Speaker
You know, there has been only one time in my life, and I'm trying to remember the member where I got a phone call. It was after I had left C-SPAN, and they said, hey, our prop has been blocked from coming to the floor. Would you like us to come talk about it? And I was like, yeah, I mean, I'll come to your office. It's after hours. It's fine. And if I remember the member's name, every single person will remember who this guy is because it's the member who said the Republican plan for health care was for you to die quickly.
00:32:20
Speaker
And the prop that got blocked was for those who were in DC, there was a New York newspaper cover of, I think it was Abraham Lincoln covered in excrement, right? And it was this John Boehner negative speaker moment. And the parliamentarian had said that that visual image demeans the body, right? And that was one of my first entrees to owe
00:32:45
Speaker
this is an interesting moment that somebody can't actually stop these things from coming to the floor. As I said, Niels knows the rules better than I do because I no longer am that nerdy of a congressional person. But I have not heard of many more being blocked.
Challenges and Future of Policy Communication
00:33:00
Speaker
And there are plenty of things that we all see make it to the House and Senate floor where we're just like, that's basically a Twitter image or a PowerPoint meme that's just been shoved onto a poster. But it's like,
00:33:14
Speaker
That that's now the purpose, right? Like I am a chart nerd. I am a database nerd. I am the guy that probably like you. If somebody uses one, I'm looking at where the source is to be like, where'd you get the data? Can I go back and find the actual report? Um, right. And like, I, I'm the one who's going to, going to basically shit posted a member when you're in the back of the chamber, you built a really shiny chart and the light is reflective. So I can't see it.
00:33:39
Speaker
Right. Like, because for those who don't know, like the lights in house and set of cameras, they're controlled by Congress, right? Like they're not controlled by private sector. So they can and they have, they have hundreds of camera angles they can choose from. And I'm like, you can move that light. I know you can move that light. Is there a guy I can tweet at to move that light in real time? Right. And so like,
00:34:01
Speaker
I like it when they use actual charts and data because then I can see what's your argument and there are only a few members and Senator Joni Ernst is one of them who and her staff are exceptionally good at like saying to me.
00:34:12
Speaker
in like two hours, probably going to be on the floor. Right. And I'm like, great. Thank you for that. Right. Like, because even if I can't appeal, appear in real time, I can, I can flag it. Right. Um, but some of these members and Joni Ernst office does this every once in a while, they'll post the moment, obviously to the constituent newsletter, right? Or the website, but they'll also frequently include the source, right? If they're actually citing stats and figures, right? Even if it's a photo, they'll include sourcing because
00:34:39
Speaker
Congress is inherently political light, right? That is the job. But like for those of us who work in policy communications, we just want to know, right? Like, because one, you could be a subject area we have expertise in that can solve the problem or two, like.
00:34:54
Speaker
your data may actually be wrong, which does happen sometimes, like misprints happen, right? Like, you know, there have been times where they've had the chart upside down, right? Like, and you know, I'll share with you so you can share with your readers or your listeners, like, there's a very famous peak oil chart that has like 17 different frickin axes to it that went onto the floor. And I use this as an example of like, not only bad visual design, but I hope the purpose of that chart was to showcase we don't know what we're doing.
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah, right. Like, but like, I wanted to know when I saw that I was like, what member why and who? Right? Like, because, you know, again, you you worked at, you know, at CBO, like, you want to put those those connections together. Right? Like, if even if you're just a data business nerd, you want to know much less a policy nerd and a communications nerd. Right, right. It is interesting that there is someone who
00:35:45
Speaker
Reviews or looks I mean, I'm surprised with some of the things like Marjorie Taylor Greene bringing on naked pictures of Hunter Biden like made it past some
00:35:55
Speaker
filter, I guess. And I think there's differences between committee rule and like, probably, right? Like, because, because committees, I think committees are institutions unto themselves, but it is still a moment where if there aren't rules, I would stand back and be like, well, why not? Right. And if the rules are inherently political, such as the chair gets to decide one, I would like to know that just in, in almost any story that is written about those sorts of, of props and images.
00:36:23
Speaker
Right like, because there are funnier moments. I think there was one where like Fred Upton and another member were, had made a bet and were passing like a bottle of alcohol back and forth, right? Because they lost that, like a funny moment. But there was also, you know, moments where I think it was, I want to say it was Greg Walden brought in like a jar of water that had been contaminated, right? And it's like, okay, are there medical rules around bringing in a jar of water that's contaminated? Like those little things where it's like,
00:36:48
Speaker
journalism can only go so deep, we know that, right? Like inches, inches matter in regular print. But for those of us, you know, I have met so many people in DC, both Twitter and offline, who will say like, engaging with floor charts, and the notion of like, why was that made them want to be more engaged, and some of them to go work inside of Congress, right? And I'm like, I'm so happy for that. Because
00:37:14
Speaker
the original point of C-SPAN was to kind of demystify some of these things. And for me, that was the point of floor charts was to be like, this is yours. You pay for this. If you pay attention, there's a responsiveness mechanism that can be had. And now it feels like there's almost no way to build that relationship again between does the staffer want to engage on Twitter? Does the staffer want the email engagement? Because I've
00:37:42
Speaker
I've tried and I understand why most staffers aren't interested right but like when substat came out and I was like all right let's pop a flowchart substat and talk about how you go from idea to chart right like and like you know most staffers
00:37:57
Speaker
you can only talk so much about the business of the office, right? Like, and like, the create and the creative process, some of them have much more freedom, right? And some of them, by the time you get to talking about that, the narrative has shifted negative on the policy issue, right? And so it's like, you know, once you're back to the only way you interact with government is by the
00:38:18
Speaker
By the pipelines they better they kind of decide right phone call to your member office Email to your member office and not all these staffers are online Some of them really just want to talk to people like some of them don't know Maybe they shouldn't talk to people because like all of us will tweet at them all the time Like there there was a couple of years there Where there's a guy named Yuri Beckleman. I think you know Yuri. I
00:38:42
Speaker
Uh, maybe not Yuri worked in Congress and Mark Takano's office. He worked for the modernization committee. Yuri actually, he brought international like chart day to Congress.
00:38:57
Speaker
Um, did an entire day again, Robert Cara, who I keep mentioning over and over was there and like he is his big idea for floor charts, which I'm thankful for that. He did it. We reprinted like the 50 most popular crazy posters and built an art gallery inside of one of the house office buildings and was just, and we were just like, come hang out guys. Right. And all these staffers were like, Oh, you're floor charts. And I was like, yes, this is the purpose. You literally tweeted all of these memes because you want me to talk to you. Right. And now like.
00:39:34
Speaker
the most famous charts for a very long time. And there's a few members that do it like clockwork. We're always the like high school team wins, right? Or like so-and-so gets congressional like, you know, medal or something. And it's like, those are wonderful, really like local moments, right? And it's like, they get tweeted just as much as they are on the floor. But like, if you remove the social media aspect of policy comms, all of a sudden it's like,
00:39:51
Speaker
I know how to contact Congress because I work in D.C.
00:40:02
Speaker
Did the member have time was the member in session to tell those people, Hey, you're going to be mentioned, right? Like in this speech, um, you know, and again, I'm a broken record. It goes back to like, I really would like.
00:40:14
Speaker
Library of Congress, some formalized government body to realize like this is kind of like basically congressional mail, right? Like this is a thing. This is something people would take an interest
FloorCharts Book and Publishing Challenges
00:40:26
Speaker
in. And I've had journalists, Derek Willis being one of them, he's no longer with ProPublica, who have asked me multiple times, how formal is your archive?
00:40:35
Speaker
Could we, could we basically like really implement it into basically like an actual database set that is searchable and sortable and findable? And I'm like, yeah, it's C-SPAN screenshots, guys. Like you got 27 staff, like bring it. But like, if I don't, yeah, and this is, this is what I mean by pre-pandemic, post-pandemic. The pandemic shift, right, of, of congressional going fully like remote for a while, but also all of us being glued right indoors, like,
00:41:03
Speaker
on top of basically becoming a director of, you know, eight to nine people just burned through free time, right? All of a sudden, right? And so it's like, I don't get to keep up as much as I would like, I can promise you, I don't miss anything. But at the same time, like Twitter decreasing in its algorithm, like relevance, I don't get tweeted nearly as much anymore. Yeah, right. Like,
00:41:25
Speaker
And so it's like, you know, and look, I don't love social media platforms for a whole host of reasons, but for my ecosystem, it was wonderful. Again, I met my wife because of Twitter, right? Like, I really can't hate on the platform too much for that aspect, right?
00:41:41
Speaker
So to wrap up, so what does the future look like for you in floor charts? Like, are we going to get the coffee? I always wanted the coffee table book. Like, are we going to get the best of coffee table book? Like, so let's hold on one second. Uh, we, so I actually have two coffee table books. Well, should define them more as picture books because coffee table books have a specific publishing connotation, um, to my friends who work in publishing. So give me one second.
00:42:07
Speaker
So, and this is actually a good story. So, for those who are C-SPAN watchers or not, C-SPAN has book TV, right? One of the most popular things on the planet for those people who are older and love books. And it means C-SPAN does get a chance to kind of work to publish their own books, right? Like, and you find them in like, I think the last one was like a compendium of Q&A interviews and things like that. Again, nerd like me loves these things.
00:42:33
Speaker
And so, for those who don't know, C-SPAN was founded in the brainchild of Brian Lamb. And please Google him and read all about him because he is truly an American hero. And C-SPAN
00:42:46
Speaker
When I was there, I came to DC explicitly for C-SPAN and they had an open door executive policy. And so I used to spend hours before work and after work just hanging around the network, right? And like realizing I wanted to learn from these people. And so after I left C-SPAN, I always felt blessed that if I ran into Brian, he literally would stand in the street for half an hour with me and answer my crazy questions.
00:43:09
Speaker
Because he he's a journalist. I mean, C-SPAN has a radio, right? Like radio it has online has three networks has all of this stuff and this guy
00:43:18
Speaker
was there for so much of it. It's like how much is in your brain, right? Like, so one day I was talking to him about books and he was giving me as best he could the download on the publishing industry and just how impossibly hard it is to break into regular publishing, right? And I had friends, you know, I mentioned I love charts. I had other friends who had done the 365 a day calendars, right? Or like,
00:43:42
Speaker
you know the coffee table books and they and he said to me is like why don't you just self-publish it like why don't you go to one of those basically like online things and i was like yeah i was like i've got 10 to 12 000 of these freaking things archived like how in the daylight am i going to find time so uh i was talking to another friend of mine that everyone who's on twitter probably knows tammi gordon
00:44:06
Speaker
at Tammy. Tammy and I met each other because she used to be the digital lead, amongst other things, to AARP. And they were famous for this campaign called Disrupt Aging. Because AARP, you think of older people, and they were like, no, Grammy and Emmy awards? Let's disrupt the narrative, right? So they had tweeted one day about like, you know, basically like,
00:44:30
Speaker
how many rappers can you guess are like you know part of the AARP like age range or something like that and she was in a meeting and I tweeted back at her how many of those rappers have appeared and rapped on C-SPAN um and she we got coffee later and she was like I was literally in a meeting it's like how is this kid one-upping me right on my own campaign in it like in a meeting about the campaign
00:44:52
Speaker
And Tammy is wonderful. We've been friends for a while. And Tammy had a friend who specialized very explicitly in helping people run successful crowdfunding campaigns. Things like Kickstarter during its like real hate, original heyday moment. And I reached out to her and I was like, if I wanted to Kickstarter a coffee table book, is it possible? And she was like, oh, we can absolutely do this, right? And so what ended up happening was this little crazy thing, right? That's like 28 to 30 pages. That's just the A to Z guide.
00:45:21
Speaker
to floor charts and it's literally an alphabetical children's style book that's not nearly written well enough that's just like you know it's like A is for alcohol because members like to use alcohol on the floor right B is for big charts and budget charts really really silly things and I went on to kickstarter and I ended up raising I think somewhere around ten thousand dollars and printing like hundreds of copies
00:45:44
Speaker
And, uh, there was a Trump edition because I met some stretch goal and was psychotic enough to do a second one of those. Right. Um, and it was one of those moments where like I've given away a ton, somebody recommended I give one to every congressional office and I was like, you got money. Um, like a little bit to print. Um, but it was, it was one of those moments where like, again,
00:46:08
Speaker
Like, because of Twitter, and I will say this, because of social media, within 24 hours, I had maxed the campaign already. But hilariously enough, none of it was journalists. None of it was the following I had primarily built, right? Because journalists don't buy a whole lot of books about nerdy things because they don't make a lot of money and they have other things to do. And congressional staff don't really need to buy these things because they work in it. But it was one where I was like,
00:46:34
Speaker
There's an audience, right? And like I was, I was, I launched it very particularly around Christmas. So everybody wanted a stocking stuffer. Right. But like, yeah, it was like, I have long wanted to do another one of these, but at the same time, and you and I talked about this early, and this was the struggle is like, this is, this is for those who are nerds, a mile deep inch wide sort of issue. Right. Like, and, and there are people interested in that, but how you then turn that into a product.
00:47:01
Speaker
Right light is is the difficulty right and so for me floor charts will always continue I'm very sad that basically like for a long time The the running goal was to have like four or five hundred queued posts on the back So if I had a bad week, it was still running and I ran out of those like three years ago right and so now it's like I
00:47:22
Speaker
Excel spreadsheets, right, links and just trying to keep up as best I can. Because it's, it is impossible for one person to be the exhaustive full time catalog. Yeah, right. And like I was for about three years. And then I was like, Nope, no more. So like,
00:47:40
Speaker
Like, you know, you and I work in policy communications, right? Like, at the end of the day, like, this is as robust a project as the interest in, right? Basically, this feature is. And I have never lobbied a member to be like, can you get someone like the library to handle this, right? Like, or how's Creative Services? Don't you have the digital files for all of this? And we're just like,
00:48:03
Speaker
attach it to something, but like it will go on and I will continue to be the nerd that says this should be solvable, right?
Evolving Policy Communication and Audience Engagement
00:48:10
Speaker
Like, you know, because, you know, when I think about, and I'm a C-SPAN nerd again for a moment, C-SPAN runs something called student cam, right? Like these competitions for students to submit videos based upon a question where you can earn money and come to DC and all of that. And the requirements are they use C-SPAN footage, right? And I'm like, if you had the congressional record,
00:48:32
Speaker
tied to the video, tied to the moment, these sorts of things. It just makes that entire communications and policy thing better. Right? Like, and it makes the communicating about policy better. But it's work because as you know, because you've seen the congressional record, it's a whole lot of text. Yeah, that's right. No time. No time codes. No, no visual cues. It's like,
00:48:55
Speaker
Okay, and so because it's funny, because in order to like, if you go to floorcharts.com, most of what you'll see is like, if you want to see the congressional record for that moment, or that day, it's linked there. And everybody always says to me, well, can't you just like, only do that speech in the congressional record? And I was like, if the congressional record was digital first, do a whole lot of things for you guys.
00:49:15
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have the time to do that anymore. Right. Like, and so it's an awesome project. I'm so glad to be talking to you about this stuff. Right. But like, yeah, because like, I, I still continue to believe the average reader listener viewer is more interested in policy than DC believes they are. Right. And like, you know, my, my plug at the end of the day, it's the only plug I really have. Cause I love floor charts. I love your, I love your work and you know this.
00:49:41
Speaker
We kicked a podcast at our street this year that was called Red Tape because we are a center-right, pro-limited, effective government, right? It needs to be very effective, but it doesn't need to be as monolithic with just bureaucratic red tape. And the entire point of the podcast was we sat down and we were rapping and it was like, why can't I have solar panels on my house if I want?
00:50:03
Speaker
Why is someone trying to take away TikTok from me? Why are EVs only just now here? And it was this dialogue where it was like, break everything down to basically if you had to just talk about it every day to somebody on an Uber or on a train. And it was like, no, we found that the audiences really just wanted to know in simple terms.
00:50:23
Speaker
right like about why government why not government why reg why not reg and and as i think we all know because i'm being repetitive you know this when you talk one to one with people right like it's a much more realistic engaging dialogue than just.
00:50:39
Speaker
hey, that party's bad. That law is evil. This person's terrible. Because I always say, I'm interested in government. I'm not interested in politicians. They are interesting people. I read their books. I watch their speeches. But they are functions of government. And for me, the word of the day for anybody who ever knows me is always P, for precedent. You watch what government does because when it sets precedent, it has ramifications. And so for something like floor charts,
00:51:09
Speaker
like it's gonna sound crazy but like they will try to meme one up each other constantly right like mike lee bringing out star wars tonton photos or you know aquaman on a seahorse right like sean casting going deep on like you know raps like they tried out to each other right like and it's actually funny because there was and then i will i will
00:51:31
Speaker
we will wrap this up. There was one moment, and it was a very funny moment, it was after the 2020 elections, as when everybody remembers Congress really started having vigorous debate about how do we prevent another 1-6, but also like how do you ensure that if you have another pandemic with an election in the middle, you enable accurate, right, robust, secure, reliable elections.
00:51:56
Speaker
And John Cornyn got up with a chart that was like 94% say 2020 elections were like the easiest and or safest. And he was using it to make a point. And then another Democratic member of the Senate came over, took the chart away from him and was like, yeah, I want to point out that this number is big, right? Like that if this is your point, can we pass a law that makes this the point? And it was the first time I'd ever seen that actually pass hands.
00:52:24
Speaker
And I was like, this is hilarious. This very funny moment for those who are interested in policy, like where did the number come from? How do I get in touch with the member office? How do I take this moment and make it more real in like a solutions mindset? Like that at the end of the day is the purpose of things like charts and props in Congress, right? That's just viral moments. Like they want you to pay attention.
00:52:47
Speaker
Right? And again, and I'm a broken record, like you pay for this. Yeah, this is ours. Whether it's $10, $50 or $100, you're paying for it. And they often don't want to remind you of that. Right? But you know, just like you pay for government, so watch these bands, so to speak, right? Like, you know, you pay for pay for government, read the CBO reports, look at the props and tell them what you think, but kind of be respectful
Closing Thoughts and Call to Action
00:53:12
Speaker
about it.
00:53:12
Speaker
Right. But yeah, no, John, like, again, I recommend for DC and you're not going to update it soon because you have a life. Anybody who hasn't who hasn't picked up elevated debate to really understand policy and communications in the intersection. This is why John and I know each other. This was the original conversation. Right. Right. And then I would say to folks who are listening, if you want to help Bill, it sounds like you could use some help. So if you want to help collect
00:53:40
Speaker
Organize, catalog. How many images do you have? Do you have a status? 12,000 on the back end at this point. 12,000 on the back end. So if you want to help organize 12,000 images into some sort of usable database, I'm sure that would be great. Bill, thanks so much for coming on the show. It's great to see you. Great chat. I look forward to just watching more. Have a great weekend. Go Bills, right? That's right. That's right. All right. Thanks, buddy. It's good to see you. No problem. Talk to you later.
00:54:07
Speaker
Thanks everyone for tuning into this week's episode of the show. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Bill Gray, the author behind floor charts. I hope you'll of course check out the Twitter feed and his book. And I put a bunch of notes in the show notes page of this week's episode of the show. And while you're at it, I hope you'll do me just a quick favor. You wouldn't mind rating or reviewing the show on your favorite podcast provider. This helps me keep the show going, helps me attract high profile guests.
00:54:34
Speaker
and the like so that I can bring you this show every other week for as long as I can. So until next time, this has been the Policy Vis podcast. Thanks so much for listening.
00:54:45
Speaker
A number of people help bring you the PolicyViz podcast. Music is provided by the NRIs, audio editing is provided by Ken Skaggs, design and promotion is created with assistance from Sharon Satsuki-Ramirez, and each episode is transcribed by Jenny Transcription Services. If you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it and review it on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:55:06
Speaker
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