Two years ago we explored how LLMs could help America's citizenry better understand the functioning of their government by distilling down the vast highly verbose discourse of democratic governance into succinct and simplified summaries understandable by the average citizen. At the time, the then-state-of-the-art models struggled to make sense of the dense language of governance to turn it into simplified lists of the stories, bills and topics discussed. Given our considerable success over the past week in cataloging the major stories discussed in general television news programming, what might it look like to apply the same workflow to examine three CSPAN broadcasts, two of which are floor videos from the House of Representatives and ask Gemini 2.5 Flash Thinking to make a list of the stories and debates discussed in each? The end results are extremely promising, not only yielding a concise simple list of the major policy debates discussed, but creating a complete index of all of the locations within the transcript where each debate is mentioned.

Let's start with this National Governor's Association briefing from 2009. The first few minutes are the closing portion of a report on President Obama's visit to Egypt. Interestingly, despite the transcript not mentioning Obama, Gemini was able to connect the details of the visit to his 2009 trip.

{"DESCRIPTION":"Details of President Obama's activities in Cairo, including his choice of location for public appearances, his meeting with President Mubarak, and the implications of his visit.","STORYID":1,"TITLE":"President Obama's Visit to Cairo","TXT":"","TYPE":"STORY"}
{"DESCRIPTION":"Report from the National Governors' Association and National Association of State Budget Officers on the severe fiscal challenges faced by U.S. states, including revenue declines, budget shortfalls, impact of the recovery package, and future projections.","STORYID":2,"TITLE":"States Facing Steepest Budget Cuts in 30 Years","TXT":"","TYPE":"STORY"}

What about the far more detailed and dense discussion of this House of Representatives floor video from December 6, 2022? Here it distills down this 30 minute sequence of speeches and statements into their core underlying stories, themes and debates:

{"DESCRIPTION":"Discussion on new issues created by generative A.I. systems, including the potential for misleading content, and the importance of studying and regulating A.I. that impacts people and society.","STORYID":1,"TITLE":"Generative A.I. Issues and Regulation","TYPE":"STORY"}
{"DESCRIPTION":"Standard opening procedures of the U.S. House of Representatives, including the prayer by the Chaplain, approval of the journal, the Pledge of Allegiance, and receipt of messages from the President.","STORYID":2,"TITLE":"House Floor Opening Procedures","TYPE":"STORY"}
{"DESCRIPTION":"Debate during National Police Week concerning legislative proposals (H.R. 2494, H.R. 3091, H.Con.Res. 40) aimed at supporting law enforcement. Key points of contention include whether the legislation adequately supports all law enforcement agencies (federal vs. local) and accusations of hypocrisy regarding 'defunding the police.' This includes honoring fallen officers and the January 6 Capitol attack.","STORYID":3,"TITLE":"National Police Week and Law Enforcement Legislation","TYPE":"STORY"}
{"DESCRIPTION":"Debate on the approaching U.S. debt ceiling, House Republican efforts to address it with spending cuts (Limit, Save, and Grow Act), and criticism of the Administration and House Democrats for not negotiating and putting financial stability at risk, and also calls for protecting Social Security and Medicare from cuts.","STORYID":4,"TITLE":"U.S. Debt Ceiling and Fiscal Policy","TYPE":"STORY"}
{"DESCRIPTION":"A call to action and awareness regarding the high rates of suicide among veterans, highlighting efforts to support them and provide crisis resources.","STORYID":5,"TITLE":"Veteran Suicide Awareness","TYPE":"STORY"}
{"DESCRIPTION":"Discussion on the importance of medically tailored meals to prevent hospital readmissions for patients with conditions like heart disease and diabetes, and advocating for these meals to be a covered Medicare benefit.","STORYID":6,"TITLE":"Medically Tailored Meals in Healthcare","TYPE":"STORY"}
{"DESCRIPTION":"Announcement of an upcoming Senate Banking Committee hearing where Bank and Signature Bank will testify about their conduct and the impact of their recent failures.","STORYID":7,"TITLE":"Bank Failures and Senate Banking Committee Hearing","TYPE":"STORY"}

Or this House of Representatives floor video from December 6, 2022? Similar to the broadcast above, Gemini breaks this series of floor speeches into the underlying debates they address. Interestingly, despite the EPG program information stating that the broadcast focuses on "The House will consider legislation on U.S. immigration policy", Gemini captures the opening prayer segment and the Gold Medal Ceremony announcement at the end.

{"DESCRIPTION":"Standard opening protocols of the House of Representatives, including prayer, journal approval, and Pledge of Allegiance.","STORYID":1,"TITLE":"House Opening Procedures","TXT":"","TYPE":"STORY"}
{"DESCRIPTION":"Consideration of House Resolution 1508, which sets the rules for debate and amendments for H.R. 3648 (EAGLE Act) and H.R. 7946 (Veterans Service Recognition Act).","STORYID":2,"TITLE":"House Resolution 1508 - Procedural Rule for Immigration Bills","TXT":"","TYPE":"STORY"}
{"DESCRIPTION":"Discussion and debate regarding H.R. 3648, known as the Equal Access to Green Cards for Legal Employment (EAGLE) Act of 2022, focusing on eliminating per-country caps for employment-based visas and raising caps for family-sponsored visas.","STORYID":3,"TITLE":"H.R. 3648 - EAGLE Act (Immigration Reform)","TXT":"","TYPE":"STORY"}
{"DESCRIPTION":"Discussion and debate regarding H.R. 7946, known as the Veterans Service Recognition Act, which aims to provide benefits and improve naturalization processes for noncitizen members of the armed forces.","STORYID":4,"TITLE":"H.R. 7946 - Veterans Service Recognition Act","TXT":"","TYPE":"STORY"}
{"DESCRIPTION":"Announcement of an upcoming Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony honoring Capitol Police, D.C. Metropolitan Police, and others who protected the Capitol on January 6th.","STORYID":5,"TITLE":"Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony","TXT":"","TYPE":"STORY"}