Since I might have your renewed attention, briefly (“but I thought this RSS feed was broken”), and since I’m already frantically promoting it on Twitter, let me draw your attention to this morning’s announcement from Sunlight’s Open States team. In short: we’ve got a new mobile app, and our services now support all fifty states (plus DC and Puerto Rico).
Getting to fifty is a big deal, and I’m extremely proud of Sunlight and the Open States team for reaching this milestone. No one’s done this before; it took us years to do it ourselves. This data existed, but in a completely piecemeal manner — there was no consistent location, API or data model. Getting it collected, cleaned and accessible will have real impacts for journalists, watchdogs and citizens. If you saw Sunlight’s recent work on mandatory ultrasound legislation — well, suffice it to say that there’s much more coming on that front, and Open States is what’s going to make it possible.
This was a huge undertaking — honestly, I don’t think anyone knew if creating and maintaining a legislative data collection architecture pulling from so many disparate sources would even be possible when we started. It’s a tremendous testament to the contributors and developers who’ve made this possible, and the leadership of my colleague James Turk in particular. Nice job, you guys.