Billtracker

[mark-mcdermott]

Short description of the idea (140 character tweet):

Bill Tracker - follow and annotate bills as they go through the Texas legislature.

What is your project concept or idea? What challenge or opportunity will it solve?

This will build an online community around following and discussing bills in the Texas legislature. Bills are currently available to the public, but the format is not conducive to annotating.

Who will benefit from your project? Describe the humans at the center of the problem - who are they?

How would they benefit? Can you tell their story?

Do you have photos of them? Or quotes?

Any and all Texans. We are all affected by Texas legislation.

Issue area(s) relevant to your project idea:

[Look at the right sidebar :arrow_upper_right: ! Do you see the Labels? Pick a few]

• Open Government/Transparency

  What is the current state of your project idea? [Pick more labels :arrow_upper_right: ]

• I tested a prototype and want to build it

  Tell us more about the current state of your project idea.

  Do you have any links to text, mockups, code, or data?

We started this at last year's ATX Hack For Change but didn't finish. The github repo is https://github.com/bill-tracker/bill-tracker . Our work in progress is at https://billtracker-dev.herokuapp.com/

Tell us about yourself.

What is your background? Why is this challenge important to you?

Are you representing a group in submitting this project idea?

5 years full time professional front end web development. Currently pursuing a masters in software engineering. I worked on this with the Billtracker team last year and they've asked me to champion it this year.

[mateoclarke]

Thanks for submitting this project proposal @mcdermottsolutions! I've added some labels based on your responses.

[ssharif1]

ACTION NEEDED

Hello Project Champion,

Please provide the following: Full Name + Email Address You can comment here or send to ssharif1@stedwards.edu

We are going to be sending out a note + newsletter to our 345 (as of May 18) attendees sharing our submitted projects before the event and your hackers will want to know who you are. Additionally, we have PC-specific communication that we want to make sure that you are included on.

Thanks, ATX H4C Staff

[mark-mcdermott]

Project champion: Mark McDermott, mcdermottsolutions@gmail.com

[mscarey]

Hi again @mcdermottsolutions!

I drifted in and out of the billtracker project last year. For a while I really didn't want to work on it, but I actually think now might be a good time to take a new look at it. Several people have expressed an interest lately in exploring state-level campaign finance and lobbying data, so it would be natural to link that analysis to bills. On the #lobbyist-campaign channel on open-austin.slack.com, we've been working mostly with city-level data so far, but you might want to look at the discussion to see what ideas people have been tossing around.

[mark-mcdermott]

Hey @mscarey! Sounds great, I'll get in that slack and check out the conversation. Linking lobbying and campaign finance to bills might be something we could do. I might have some questions for you after I review the conversation on slack.

[danielhonker]

Great to see you back this year @mcdermottsolutions. Consider your project accepted -- we invite you to pitch at this year's ATX Hack for Change.

Now that your project has been approved, here are some things we suggest you do next: https://github.com/atxhack4change/2016-project-proposals#once-your-project-is-accepted-here-are-some-things-we-suggest-you-do-next

You will receive an email in the next few days regarding your speaking slot for the Saturday morning pitches. Please let us know if you will no longer be able to champion your project at the hackathon.

[danielhonker]

@mcdermottsolutions - you should have received an invite to join Slack (I think you were still on there from last year). If you haven't already joined the team and seen the Slack channel for your project, it's #billtracker (same channel reactivated from last year). We'll be sending out an email with details on pitches soon.