In summary
Now, Californians and Hawaiʻi residents alike can search through every word uttered in public hearings, every dollar given to a politician, every bill introduced and every vote taken in their state legislatures.
CalMatters’ innovative Digital Democracy project is now bringing government transparency to other states, starting with Hawaiʻi. On Sept. 21, Digital Democracy Hawaiʻi launched in partnership with the Honolulu Civil Beat.
Now, just like Californians, Hawaiʻi residents have the power to search through every word uttered in public hearings, every dollar given to a politician, every bill introduced, every vote taken and more in Hawaiʻi’s Legislature. In California, having that level of transparency and data has powered dozens of CalMatters stories.
“We believe the eyes of everyday citizens on the public process will encourage legislators to make better, more thoughtful decisions based on what the people want, not what legislative leaders, lobbyists or other powerful interest groups tell them to do,” wrote Civil Beat Executive Editor-in-Chief Amy Pyle and Ideas Editor Patti Epler about the launch.
CalMatters’ key Digital Democracy funders, the Knight Foundation and Arnold Ventures, are making it possible for CalMatters to bring Digital Democracy to other states.
Already, Digital Democracy Hawaiʻi has triggered the Hawaiʻi Campaign Spending Commission to fix its state campaign finance data.
A CalMatters Digital Democracy engineer found that a third of the data entries from the state’s campaign finance data were duplicates. After further investigation and contacting the ethics commission, the public data on the commission’s website has been fixed. Colleagues at Civil Beat said that we’ve “helped the entire citizenry” before launch.
And the impact of Digital Democracy California continues to grow.
Most recently, the data behind Digital Democracy powered our personalized My Legislator newsletter, which told Californians what their California state legislators said, voted on, introduced and more every single week. My Legislator ran a beta version for four weeks and is returning in January when the state legislature reconvenes.
People used the newsletter as:
- An impetus to contact their legislators, asking about why they voted (and didn’t) on specific legislation.
- A way to stay informed that was previously impossible: watching what their California state legislators said, voted on, introduced and more.
- A resource to learn about key legislative topics and follow hearings and votes on issues that are important to them.
The Digital Democracy team was awarded the Punch Sulzberger Prize for Journalism Innovation and an Emmy award from the Northern California chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for a collaboration with CBS-TV, “Using new AI, grieving moms discover California lawmakers killed popular fentanyl bill by *not* voting.”
We are also honored that Digital Democracy is a finalist for the Trust in American Institutions Challenge, which aims to find and scale “a bold solution that will build and restore public trust.” Our entry, one of 375, rose to the top five finalists after several rounds of judging. Regardless of whether Digital Democracy will be awarded the final prize, the concept is now commended to be, as one judge said, “a strong example of what a bold solution can look like — imaginative, relevant and ready to grow.”
For the record: This article has been updated to reflect the Hawai’i Campaign Spending Commission fixed its state campaign finance data. An earlier version misstated the agency.