New York Senate opens up its data to the public

The New York State Senate has launched its Open Senate initiative with an API (Application Programming Interface) allowing the public direct access to its data.

The NY Senate is also making the code freely available as open source, stating that,

As a user of Open-Source software the New York Senate wants to help give back to the community that has given it so much - including this website. To meet its needs the Senate is constantly devleoping new code and fixing existing bugs. Not only does the Senate recognize that it has a responsibility to give back to the Open Source community, but public developments, made with public money should be public.

The Senate is also working towards making most NY State government data freely available on their open data site.