The Sunlight Foundation scores the state legislatures on data openness. South Dakota ends up in the middle of the pack, with a C. Our Legislative website gets extra points for timeliness (though sometimes we're left hanging until the end of the day for roll call votes on bills) and permanence (each session is fully archived, with links to SDPB audio!). We lose points on ease of access, with links on our Legislative website going places the surveyors didn't expect.
Eager bloggers and readers spend a lot of time on the Legislative Research Council's major public work product during the winter session. We know it's a decent, straightforward website, with a focus on textual information over fancy widgets. Here are two big improvements I've thought up as I've sifted through the South Dakota Legislature's data:
- Voting Records: Currently roll call votes are linked to bills. Let's put these votes in a big session-by-session database and allow users to query by legislator, committee, and topic. Then we could get quick big-picture tables showing, for example, how often a legislator votes with her party, how she votes on education or gun issues, or how often a legislator misses votes.
- News and Social Media Updates: Each bill page should have two sidebars. One sidebar should show links to the latest news articles and blog posts on that bill. Those links would provide citizens valuable reading and context on each bill. The second sidebar should be a Twitter feed showing discussion of that bill. That way when David Montgomery is in the gallery Tweeting the blow-by-blow on HB 1087, we'd see it right on the bill page, telling us right away the bill is being amended or getting its final vote. Such update sidebars would require some cooperation from all of us: the media would need to standardize their articles on legislation, making sure every article included a clear reference to the bill number. We would also want to develop a standard set of Twitter hashtags, like #HB1087, #SB235, and #sdleg, to ensure that the LRC's sidebar widgets would find our relevant posts.
Readers, given the time you spend poring over the Legislature's business, I'm sure you can think of some online features you'd like to see the LRC implement. How can we make the Legislature's website more citizen friendly?
Sorry! Seems some legislators do NOT want their voting records so easily accessible online. When I brought a bill that attempted to do that and also another that would require ALL RECORDED VOTES be placed online with the affected legislation, both bills were defeated: http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2012/Bill.aspx?Bill=1141
For those confused, curently there are many recorded votes on amendments, etc, that are NOT being placed online for voters to see how their legislators voted on certain issues.
Even the Journal editorial board thinks the legislature is too Machiavellian:
http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/opinion/editorial-transparency-a-struggle-in-state/article_774bb206-b5a2-59d4-92f2-e52677a88c70.html
I recall that bill, Stace, and I'd love to see something like it enacted to make analysis of voting records much easier. (Find me one of your conservative pals who's into PHP coding, and she/he and I can probably bang out the voting record database you seek in a weekend (given, of course, proper compensation in cash, popcorn, and cherry Pepsi).