House Oversight Advances Connected Government Act

The House Oversight Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to advance the Connected Government Act. HR-2331, filed in May by House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill. It would require that federal agencies design all new websites to be easily viewed on mobile devices. Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and Cory Gardner, R-Colo., filed companion S-1769 earlier this month. “Mobile friendly websites will ultimately help build a stronger democracy,” Pallone and Kelly said Wednesday in a Medium post before the markup. Victims of recent natural disasters like Hurricanes Harvey and Irma depend on mobile devices as “their only connection to necessities of survival,” but “many of the essential government websites on which people depend are essentially unusable on a phone,” the Democratic lawmakers said.