Facebook is hosting two hackthons in early December to raise awareness of legislative public data and drive interest in social game development. The White House one-day hackathon, detailed by the New York Times, is set for December 7 with a Social Games Hack event in Palo Alto the following day.

The White House hackathon features a series of breakout sessions “designed to explore the innovative role that the social media should play in the public’s relationship with their legislature.” It will be co-hosted by Democratic Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland and Republican Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia. Hoyer has 4,932 Likes on Facebook according to our Election Tracker, while Cantor comes in at 126,064. Admission is free. We’re interested to see what comes out of this hackathon, which is the first of its type that Facebook has organized with members of Congress.

Facebook’s Social Games Hack costs $25 and will feature prizes for the “best apps” chosen at the end of the day. Facebook says the event will focus on sharing best practices for social discovery and implementing Open Graph features. In general, game developers are just starting to adopt some new features, like high score achievements, that surface game activity in the site-wide Ticker.