Open States at Netroots 2022
Want to chat about Open States or public policy work with the team maintaining it? Come meet the Civic Eagle team at Netroots Nation 2022!
We’ll be presenting two events:
- Lessons Learned Working in Coalitions Since Everything’s Gone Digital, a panel discussion on Thursday, August 18th from 2:30-3:30 pm
- Rooftop Vibes with special guest Congresswoman Ilan Omar and featuring music by Lizzo’s DJ Sophia Eris on Friday, August 19th from 5-7:30 PM RSVP
2022 Sessions by the Numbers
Most regular sessions have adjourned, but we’ve still got some special sessions currently meeting or coming up.
So far in 2022, Open States has had:
- 107, 501 bills ingested
- 54 legislative sessions (regular and special)
- ~4k new users registered
- 1.2 million users across 2.9 million page views on OpenStates.org
New People Tools
Right now, anybody can contribute to Open States' people data by forking openstates/people and editing the YAML there. We’re hoping to make that even easier by building a new tool that allows folks to update the data in a user-friendly UI.
As you may recall, there has been some previous work towards this goal, but it has proven to be a heavy development lift. We’re currently evaluating platforms and frameworks that provide easy tooling to get the project up and running, as well as make it possible for public contributions.
This work will lead to better people data by providing a quick way to:
- See the state of People Data
- Update, retire, or add new legislators
- Assign a sponsor to a specific bill or vote
We’ve built out a document that illustrates the current world of People data and some requirements for the initial MVP. Please reach out with any ideas, comments, or concerns via Slack, or by emailing us directly.
Redistricting
Due to the fact that there are two valid sets of boundaries, elections & elected, until the end of the year, Open States’ find-your-representatives tool (& related API endpoint) will continue to provide who is currently in office in each district.
Boundaries changed due to redistricting will be updated before 2023 sessions, along with newly elected legislators, across jurisdictions.
Expanding the Team
Civic Eagle has been hiring like mad as of late, and we’re expanding the Data Team that works on Open States projects.
Ben Fossen is the new Lead Data Engineer at Civic Eagle. He lives in Houston, Texas and enjoys playing and watching soccer, cigars, traveling, and reading books.
We’ll also be adding a Junior Data Engineer and Python Engineer to the team; their bios will be included next update.