Indiana General Assembly Considers Going Paperless with iPads

by Pam Greenberg

A single bill in the Indiana General Assembly generates about 11,400 sheets of paper, weighing 45.6 lbs. and creating a 3.8 foot stack of paper—that's the equivalent of 1.386 trees! That finding from a new study was one factor in a decision by a subcommittee of the legislature to recommend a pilot project to use iPads during the 2012 session.

Indiana’s Legislative Council Data Processing Subcommittee heard testimony earlier this week about using iPads and other technology to help in the transition to a "paperless" legislature. An in-depth report prepared for the committee by staff of the Legislative Services Agency provides detailed information that should be helpful to other states looking at implementing tablets in the legislature or moving toward a more paperless process.

Some of the findings, such as technical issues and readiness to adopt tablet technology, are specific to Indiana, but the information offered and issues identified are a useful outline of what needs to be considered beyond the simple purchase of an iPad.

Members of the subcommittee were concerned with possible savings and efficiencies from using tablets, so they also asked the Department of Emerging Technologies at Ball State University to study the flow of paper throughout the Indiana legislative process. The study also asked several key questions—“How is paper used in the Legislature?,”  "How would technology impact the process?" and “Why do you print”—which helped focus on the important issues to be addressed.

The Subcommittee adopted the report’s recommendation for a pilot project for the 2012 legislative session. When approved by the full Legislative Council, members of the Senate Tax and Fiscal Policy Committee and the House Education Committee will receive iPads with complete committee packets—bills, fiscal notes, and amendments—instead of paper copies.  Members of the public will also be able to access the committee packets online, addressing Subcommittee Chairperson Brandt Hershman's concern with making sure the legislative process is transparent and accessible to the public.

The report also recommends that the General Assembly continue its practice of assisting legislators with privately-owned tablet devices, increase wireless capacity within the State House, optimize the General Assembly’s website for mobile devices, and add the capacity to stream live video of legislative meetings to iPads and other mobile devices.

In addition to the committee pilot project, the report recommends making a custom web page available to committee members to allow easy access to legislative information, identifying additional legislative activities that could be converted to paperless processes, and considering House and Senate rules changes in 2013 to permit greater use of electronic documents.

Indiana joins numerous other states, including West Virginia and Virginia, that are looking for ways that new consumer devices can help save costs and improve efficiency.

Comments

[Karl Kurtz]

Steven T. James, clerk of the Massachusetts House, asked me to post this comment:

"We’ve been paperless here in Massachusetts (House and Senate) for several sessions. The only bills that we print are the original papers, and those are printed only when the initial committee report is made, or if the measure is a late file.

"Bills going to the Governor are, of course, prepared (one copy only) for final passage and signature."

[Diane Boyer-Vine]

Having particated on the drafting and now enactment committee for the Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act, which deals in part with what happens when law is produced only electronically, paperless processes are of interest.

[Jay]

Paper can be recycled & new trees planted. What will happen to those iPads? Electronics & plastics better that paper? http://bit.ly/N-Renewable

[William Schaeffer]

Paperless is the only way to go. Back in 2001 we installed our chamber automation system in the West Virginia House of Delegates. We are now, using the iPad, installing International Roll-Call's (IRC) Chamber Automation System in the Senate and IRC's Committee Automation System in four Standing Committees in the House of Delegates. Using the IRC "Crawler" application we can integrate with the existing state legislative management system in order to retrieve all the required information and documents which pulls the data into the SQL database for the members to have real-time access using the iPad. The Chamber and Committee Automation systems are also integrated with International Roll-Call's voting applications to provide real-time display board information, vote totals, request to speak information and voting data to the members.

[Peter Garcia]

I think it's a good idea not just because you will save trees but because it's alot more organized.I know you need to recycle the plastic and electronics as they get old ,I think if everyone else is using the ipads what's the difference of them using it as well. They are eventually gonna do it anyway's......

[Sean McGrath]

Electronic is clearly the future path for legislatures but I would urge all States to consider the legisprudence issues that "born digital" raises.

The UELMA is a great start but there are hard problems that need solutions before provenance and authenticity in a purely digital world gets to where it needs to get to.

The good news is that there are viable solutions based on automated provenance tracking and tamper evident storage that can be designed into legislative workflows.

The technology is there. What is needed now is a reference legislative informatics architecture and guidelines to help those on the road to going paperless.

Regards,
Sean McGrath,
CTO
Propylon
http://www.propylon.com