Google of Legislation

Problem

There is a crisis in our democratic process which can be seen in the tone of the healthcare debate with pictures that depict President Obama as Adolph Hitler, with individuals bringing guns to healthcare town hall forums, and with countless YouTube videos of elected officials being shouted down by their constituents. One of the primary causes of this tone was expressed by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) “… the tone is based on fear of loss of control of their government… We have raised the question of whether or not we’re legitimately thinking about the American people and their long-term best interests.” Senator Coburn has tapped into an underlying challenge to the democratic process – that individuals don’t know what their government is doing.

Opportunity

To connect individuals to their democratic process by providing easy – intuitive – access to legislation, legislative context, and each other at the local, state, and federal levels.  Between local, state, and federal websites much of this information is available online. The opportunity is to give individuals access to what their government is doing, in real-time, by creating a system to mine all of the available information and return only the most relevant pieces to the user.

Solution:

Connect individuals and policy researchers to what their government is doing through the following steps:

• Step I: Create an intuitive search function that will use already-existing local, state, and federal legislative systems for legislation.
• Step 2: Provide well-researched briefs on how legislation is achieving desired impact.
• Step 3: Provide individuals an interface to comment, interact with other users, and organize around policy and legislation.
• Step 4: Provide local and state-elected officials – and their staff – a separate portal through which they can share information and communicate in real-time.

Purpose:

• Connect individuals to the democratic process through easily accessible information, communication, and organization.
• Provide a conduit through which those in government can connect to each other and to their constituents.