Keeping up With Online Legislative Tracking Services

by Jo Anne Bourquard

Changes occur so frequently in the companies that monitor and analyze legislation in the 50 states that you almost need a scorecard to track the legislative trackers.

LexisNexis recently announced the purchase of State Net, a legislative and regulatory tracking service headquartered in Sacramento, California. State Net provides online access to the full text of regulations and legislation along with related legislative documents such as fiscal notes, committee reports and schedules and member biographies. State Net's legislative and regulatory content complements the extensive online resources of LexisNexis, which include the full text of state and federal statutes and case law, and a variety of legal, business, government and academic publications.

NCSL has partnered with State Net, a member of the NCSL Foundation for State Legislatures, to develop its 50-State+ Bill Information Service (BIS) , which provides the full text of state and federal legislation and related information to state legislatures through the NCSL web site. (Please note the NCSL BIS is available only to state legislators and legislative staff.)

In addition to State Net, there are several other companies that offer online access to the full text of legislation in the 50 states:

• Capitol Watch (formerly NetScan) provides access to legislation in all 50 states and in the US Congress and is one of many databases available through a leading legal information service, Westlaw. Like State Net, West's Capitol Watch provides email updates for users, customized reports and offers access to state and federal legislative history information, such as committee reports and schedules and fiscal notes. West is a member of NCSL's Foundation and has contributed to NCSL by providing access to Westlaw and supporting numerous legislative staff organization events.
• CQ StateTrack (formerly TrendTrack) is a 50- state legislative tracking service that offers custom email alerts, tailored bill reports and interactive map-based displays of states with legislation identified in searches. StateTrack is part of CQ's package of news & analysis, tracking, intelligence and advocacy services at the state and federal levels.
• StateScape also covers all 50 states, the federal government and hundreds of localities through its web-based legislative and regulatory monitoring service. Their legislative tracking system, LegisTrack, also offers the capability to identify, categorize and monitor and create customized reports on bills of interest. See StateScape comment below.

In addition to companies whose primary business is providing 50-state online tracking systems, a variety of firms provide tracking, research and analysis tailored to clients' interests:

• Stateside Associates, another strong supporter of NCSL's Foundation, provides its clients an outlook on pending legislation of concern to them and develops and implements legislative advocacy programs. 
• MultiState Associates offers 50-state advocacy services on state legislation and a legislative tracking service tailored to their clients' needs.
• Kimball Shermin Ellis provides political intelligence, trend analysis and lobbying services and has developed the KSE Focus monitoring service to track and filter legislation and regulations in all 50 states.

Other companies, such as the Legislative Information Service of America (LISA) (see the comment from LISA below) and National Online Legislative Associates (NOLA), also provide access to multi-state information, although not for all 50 states. And a variety of firms, too numerous to list, track legislation in individual states.

We know our list is not comprehensive. We welcome information and comments about other companies and services that track legislation in the 50 states. 

Comments

[Andy Fish]

Thanks very much for the mention in your recent posting, but it requires correction: Legislative Information Services of America (LISA) does provide online access to full-text legislation in the 50 states (plus Washington D.C.) along with tracking, alerts and the other standard 50-state services. You were correct, however, in setting LISA apart from the other 50-state providers. This difference: LISA provides real-time reporting, often within seconds, of floor activity in chambers across the country. On the LISA screen users can see the status of all 100 chambers (49 bicameral and 2 unicameral), perform the only search with context in the industry and connect seamlessly to the in-depth resources of the top single-state providers in the country. We look forward to the convention this year and the opportunity to show the difference between replication and innovation.

Andy Fish
President & CEO
Legislative Information Services of America

[Jo Anne Bourquard]

Thanks for your correction, which makes it clear that we do need a scorecard to track the trackers! The reference to 20 states with bill status in real-time on LISA’s home page gave me the mistaken impression that the service was limited to those 20 states. Thanks again for the clarification, especially as we don’t have the space to describe every company’s services in detail.

[StateScape Client Relations]

StateScape thanks NCSL for this posting, but wanted to clarify that our bullet point belongs under both sections.

StateScape does offer legislative and regulatory tracking in all 50 states, plus DC, the federal government, and Puerto Rico - however, StateScape is unique in that we provide BOTH in-depth research and analysis services as well as one-click tracking solutions. Blending the human touch with real-time technology for 20 years, StateScape offers both consistency and innovation, while rejecting a "one size fits all" approach.

StateScape
www.StateScape.com

[Keith Bell]

Hi just a quick note to let you know about our Canadian government affairs monitoring service Policy Monitor Canada.

[Nimonik]

Thanks for all those professional resources. In addition to your list, I'd like to mention Nimonik, specialized in environmental health and safety legislation tracking. The web application keeps track of United states federal and state legislation : https://www.nimonikapp.ca/pages/legislative-tracking-for-us-environmental-health-and-safety-regulations-cfr40-cfr29

Note that we also do Canadian EHS legislation tracking for those interested :
https://www.nimonikapp.ca/pages/legislative-tracking-for-canada-environmental-health-safety

I appreciate your kindness to ask for more information.

[Beckie Krantz]

Thank you for your article. There is another service as well, Legicrawler, which has been providing Internet solutions for government information for more than 20 years. Legicrawler, with its cutting-edge Web 2.0 technology, tracks legislation and regulations in all 50 states, Congress, Canada and the European Union. We provide custom, issues-driven reports and a wide range of software-as-a-service and social networking tools.

[Sara]

Just what I was looking for. Thank you!

[Jack Dalton]

At last year's ALEC conference I was pitched on a program that would allow me to enter information on my contacts with legislators in a state on bills of interest to us. Since we have staff and contract lobbyists in each state I need a system that will alllow our partners to enter their activity and make oit available to the team.

[Andy Paul]

You have missed a player in the state legislative tracking arena called Capitol Impact,(http://www.capitolimpact.com) based in Atlanta. Capitol Impact offers state organizations (in all 5 states) unique tracking tools to help publish and organize bills for an audience. Capitol Impact has three versions fo their tracking software, one for associations or corporations, one for State and Local Government agencies and one for Professional Lobby firms. Each version provides unique security and communications tools. The State Agency version allows a lobbyists to select bills and assign them to departments then email members of the departments a note listing the bills assigned to them and asking them to review and comment. Comments from all department staff are visible to only other department personnel so that they can see the impact of legislation at each department. The professional system allows a lobbying firm to set up an account for each client, track a bill once and assign it to multiople clients. Lobbyist can add private comments to each client and a unique tracking level to inidcate bill is hot for one client and not for another. And the association version is designed to allow membersto comment on bills and notify the lobbyist that a member has commented. Capitol Impact is also the only firm to integrate tracking tools with grassroots advocacy tools so that one environment can display the issue and allow people to email their legislator about it. For more on the capitol impact tools go to http://blog.capitolimpact.com