Did you know you can watch public policy that impacts your business being debated or created LIVE without really being in the room?
Whether you want to observe a legislative hearing from the comfort of your home or listen to a replay of comments made by lawmakers about vapor products, modern technology can make it happen.
Some states have better upgraded their systems than others, but most have invested in technology to make their process more open to citizens.
According to the National Council of State Legislatures, "Live
webcasts or television broadcasts of legislative proceedings are available from at least one chamber in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Many legislatures also offer webcasts of all or selected committee hearings. More than half the states also archive and make available on the web floor proceedings, and about half archive some or all committee proceedings (for varying lengths of time). At least 30 states and D.C. broadcast some legislative proceedings on television."
Click
HERE to find a
list of state video and/or audio live feeds on the NCSL site, with quick links to their sites.
You can also watch committee or floor action for the U.S. Congress. Below are some options you may choose to consider and pick the one that you prefer.
Direct live feed and archived videos from the past are available from Congress.gov for committee hearings and floor action in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. This is paid for with your tax dollars and is a totally non-partisan and non-commercial service. Click
HERE
And, some others Congress.gov lists which you might prefer:
The U.S. House of Representatives offers streaming video feeds of the House Floor Proceedings dating back to the beginning of the 111th Congress. You can view the current session, browse or search the archive for a previous session, or view the summary, a text-only version of the proceedings. You also can opt to download audio (MP3) files of previous sessions and to subscribe to RSS feeds for live video or audio.
The U.S. Senate offers streaming video feeds of the Senate Floor Proceedings starting with the Second Session of the 112th Congress. You can view the current session, browse or search the archives, or view the summary, a text-only version of the proceedings.
Congress.gov provides access to live and archived webcasts of some House committee hearings, markups, and other meetings. For each committee, live streams appear if the committee is currently broadcasting. Otherwise, a list of previous video appears.
A good source of live and recent committee hearings in audio and video formats is the committees themselves. Many hearings are webcast live, and an archive of earlier events is often available. Links to House and Committee websites appear on each committee's landing page. See Committees of the U.S. Congress.
C-SPAN broadcasts live audio and video of House and Senate floor proceedings, committee hearings, and other Hill events. Broadcast begins after a pause if live coverage is occurring at the moment you arrive on the C-SPAN website. To change the channel to another event, click one of the "live stream" icons on the right side of the screen.
YouTube created The Senate Hub and The House Hub to organize the channels controlled by individual Senate and House offices. Find individual channels by selecting a state from a pulldown or map. Scroll past the map for links to selected videos and leadership offices."