As well as the usual annual schedule of blockbusters (appropriations and defense authorization, in particular), we're likely to get a number of large-to-enormous bills on the floor of either house of Congress this year.

Amongst them is the farm bill, which I flagged a couple of weeks ago, but did nothing to speak of on.

Now, today, Matt has grasped the nettle and is looking to do some work on the bill.

Which got me thinking about what somewhere like this can do in helping the cause of the just (whatever that might turn out to be!) as a bill like the farm bill makes its way through Congress.

It seems to me that there are three elements at play:

First, there are the real life elements which the legislation may affect: producers, consumers, environmentalists; energy, soil, water, transport; and the like.

These don't generally impact directly on the process, but are mediated by lobbying, media activity - and the sphere, natch.

Second, there is the legislative process, with its outward manifestations of hearings and testimony, legislative texts, markups, floor action and so forth.

Between those two elements, there is great and complex interaction, which happens quite nicely without our assistance!

And, third, there's us.

Where do we fit in? We're certainly a fifth wheel in the interactions between, say, lobbies representing interests we like (healthy eating, for instance - I assume!) and MCs and their staffs.

They don't need us as cut-rate parliamentarians, because they already know their motion to table from their motion to recommit; nor as a poor man's OLC either.

For a megaphone, they've got thousands (millions?) of members, knowledgable about - whatever it is: we really haven't a clue! - and ready not only to fire off faxes to MCs, but do work in, say, a rep's district with key influencers.

(Of course, there may come a time when a horde of lefties is needed for its sheer numbers in the campaign; in which case, a rant or two at DKos will supply the bodies.)

My feeling (it's evolving as I write, so expect it to evolve further!) is that there's a valuable outsider's role in analyzing the process as it unfolds and explaining it to those interested - interested not in the underlying issues (they'd be raiding the farming, environmental or whatever blogs deal with the issue they were concerned about) but in the process itself.

We won't know about the real life technicalities involved in the farm bill - biological, commercial or whatever - but we can have explained to us in sufficient detail the features salient for the legislative choices to be made.

At the other end of the operation, we can't identify the real life effects from the legislative text - a section that would result in a particular disease risk, say - we need to be led by the nose to the right place.

But, by synthesizing that guided real life knowledge with a modicum of expertise in the legislative process generally, and of political judgement in a wider sense, I think we may be able to explain events in the progress of a bill in a way that generally does not happen right now.

I think that there's something of a perfect storm with this Congress - the first Dem-controlled Congress in the blogging era, last Congress before an open prez election, etc - that gives a fair wind to this sort of experimentation.

[Metaphor, shmetaphor...]

The Open House Project is another element of this movement to open up the legislative process to electronic scrutiny.

That's all I got so far.