CQ Moves into the State Legislative Tracking Business

by Karl Kurtz

Congressional Quarterly, Inc., the leading provider of information on the workings of Congress, recently announced that it is moving into the state legislative tracking business by purchasing TrendTrack, a web-based information service on state legislatures.  TrendTrack's founder and CEO, Ron Hogan, is an NCSL staff alum.  Ron will continue to work for CQ's TrendTrack.

The other major providers of state legislative tracking services are:

• State Net, the Sacramento-based company with whom NCSL has partnered for its 50-state Bill Information Service (sorry, The Thicket readers outside the legislatures, this service is available to legislators and staff only)
• NetScan from Thomson West, which contributes to NCSL and its Foundation by providing access to Westlaw and its database on state statutes, as well as supporting numerous legislative staff organization events
• and StateScape.

Like any industry, state legislatures attract vendors who provide services of various kinds such as bill management software, roll call voting machines or constituent request management systems.  Even lobbyists can be considered a type of service provider to legislatures.  We haven't done much in The Thicket to cover these industries.  We invite submissions of items that are of multi-state interest from the broader legislative community.

11/19 Update: When I posted this item, I thought it would be apparent that the term "legislative tracking" services meant companies that provide automated searches of all state legislation.  I have since come to realize that there are other companies that provide tracking services tailored to the interests of their clients and based on intelligence-gathering in each of the states.

One such organization is Stateside Associates, which has been providing legislative monitoring services for 20 years.  Stateside Associates, a strong supporter of NCSL's Foundation, also provides its clients an outlook on pending legislation and develops and implements legislative advocacy programs. 

MultiState Associates is another company that offers 50-state advocacy services on state legislation and with whom NCSL has had a long relationship.  They have recently added a new legislative tracking service. 

I invite any other 50-state service providers on legislation to submit comments below about their company's services.

Comments

[Doug]

Never know when you're going to step in it or how, I suppose.

[Gerry]

I track bills by putting tin foil on my hat. I can usually follow 10 states, but at the peak of the sunspot cycle I can catch most of them.