This week we rolled out our first U.S. state bill tracker: Georgia. As with Congressional legislation, State bills can be searched or browsed by anyone.  Additionally, site members can track, vote, comment and use the advanced bill searching and filtering tools.

Over the next few months we will continue to push out state legislation through our legislative platform. In addition to U.S. States, we’re also working on adding more countries to the platform starting with Canada and Australia.

With all of the above, we hope to do more than simply provide a means to look at a bill. Our broader concern is to provide site members with helpful and interesting ways to discover how lawmakers around the globe address common issues through legislation, and combine that knowledge with our site tools for information sharing and mobilization.

Some political leaders say they want transparency in government. Some are actually sincere about this statement. We want to take transparency a step further. We want to provide transparency with communication, and connection. Seeing what is being done in government is one thing. Seeing what is going on and being able to express your thoughts with others about it is a much different ballgame.

View bills from the Georgia State Legislature

Technorati Tags: bill tracking, legislation

In addition to searching for Senate and House bills using the main site search tool, we have added Bill Finder to the Bill Tracking pages that allow you to browse by bill topic, search by keyword or bill number, and limit your results to a particular chamber (House or Senate). 

There is also a “tag cloud” (an unordered list of the subjects of the more popular bills search/viewed) beneath the bill finder. The larger the text, the more popular that subject is in our Bill Tracker.

All site visitors can use this search and browse tool. However, joining the site as a member adds a few extra advantages.

As a site member, you have several additional options to vote on, make comments on, or join discussions on bills. You can also follow (track) the bill. When new comments are made on bills you’re following, updates appear in your activity feed and, when the 111th Congress is called to session in 2009, changes in a bill’s progress through the legislature will also be tracked and you will be notified when such changes occur.

As always, all site members who have entered their state and Congressional district information in their Account Settings will be able to link directly from their MyP4A home page to the sponsored/cosponsored bills and legislative activity of their elected officials.

So check out the improved Bill Finder today and let us know if we can improve the experience in any way.

Technorati Tags: bill tracking, legislation

One of our primary goals here at Politics4All is to greatly simplify the effort required by citizens to remain up-to-date on the activities of their elected officials. This week we gave Politics4All site members the ability to follow, vote on, and discuss Congressional legislation in a way we hope is simple, helpful, and informative.

Bills in our system can now be followed just as other site members, groups, and campaigns. Members following bills will receive new comment updates in their activity feeds on their MyP4A home page. When the 111th Congress convenes in January, Politics4All will track the progress of new bills through Congress and update their status (on the bill display pages and activity feeds of members following them).

As an added benefit, members who have entered their political district information in their user accounts will automatically be informed when their senators and representatives introduce or cosponsor new legislation.

The initial version of this feature includes House and Senate bills aggregated from the Library of Congress, with resolutions, amendments, and much, much more to come in the weeks and months ahead.

Please check out these new features and let us know what you think!

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Technorati Tags: bill tracking, legislation