Tenth Amendment Center

Online Advocacy Toolkit

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Project Overview
The TAC legislative tracking page, a wordpress subdomain, contains a wealth of information on the status of state and local legislation. It allows people to track the status of bills on various topics. The current structure, however, is limited in functionality and overall impact. The long-term goal would be to upgrade this subdomain so that it can walk people through the steps they need to take in support of legislation being tracked. In order to ensure that the project can advance, but still remain within the limited budget capabilities of the TAC, it is broken down into phases, whereby functionality will be developed and added over time. This will also have the added benefit of allowing significant public testing on each phase, giving the TAC the ability to learn ways to improve them over time.

Project Features
PHASE 1: ADVOCACY CAPABILITIES Overview: In this initial phase, end users will have the ability to not only track the status of legislation, but also see a list of targeted action items based on the specific issue and state. User Experience: 1. HOMEPAGE. On the homepage, the user is currently able to choose from a list of issues.

2. ISSUE LANDING PAGE. After choosing an issue to track, the user is taking to an issue landing page. Here, theyll see a US map fit within the Wordpress theme. The states are color-coded based on the stage that legislation is in, which is toggled by admin in the Dashboard. (Blue-nothing Yellow-passed one house Green-passed both Red-Law.) The user will then be able to click on their state (or hover) and see a small popover display with an excerpt of information. Bill #, Date introduced, Date and action type of each step in the process (i.e. AB1327 introduced 04-13. 05-03, passed house 75-20 ,etc). Theyll also see a button or link to more info and take action

(example: simplemaps HTML5 USA map) 3. MORE INFO PAGE. On the state more info issue page, the user will see additional details which can be set up like any other page or post in the WP dashboard. Theyll also see a button to Take Action which will give them the same result as the button/link in step #2 above. 4. TAKE ACTION POPOVER/PAGE. When clicking on Take Action from either step #2 or step #3, the user will see a popover with actions for them to take which would be determined manually by state in the Wordpress dashboard by admins. This could also be a new page rather than a popover should that be better for user-experience.

(example from WPMU pop up plugin)

The options that the admin will have the ability to set for the user are as follows (all data manually entered by admin in WP dasboard): a) Contact Your State Rep. - with a link to find that information to open in a new window b) Contact Your State Senator - with a link to find that information to open in a new window c) Call [custom entry] - with a list of information or a link to find it d) Contact Your Local legislator - with an html entry box for admin e) Custom - with custom field for admin f) Custom - with custom field for admin As many or as few as selected by admin will be displayed to the user.

PHASE 2: API connection to provide some take action contact information based on user-entered address and zip+4 Overview: This phase will bring contact information for of the potenal acon steps within the site via API. This will result in more time on the site and more overall actions and support. Admin experience: In step 4 above, if admin selects option a and/or b to display to the end user, instead of including an html field in the dashboard for the admin to manually enter a link where the user can look up that information on their own, the application will connect to external data via API to provide that information to the user based on their address. Also, depending on the data available, option d) could also provide local legislator contact information based off a zip+4 lookup. More info below. User experience: If a and/or b is displayed to the user, theyll be given instructions to enter their full address to determine the proper information. Once that is entered, the proper contact information will be displayed, Phone number and email. Potential data providers: There are free and paid data providers. The following is not an all-inclusive list. Project vote smart (free) http://votesmart.org/share/api/ (does this provide the data needed for both state and local?) OpenStates (free, state only) http://sunlightlabs.github.io/openstates-api/ Cicero (fee, state and local) http://www.azavea.com/products/cicero/api/ CapWiz (unknown, state and local) https://connect.capwiz.com/documentation/lookup/v1/index.html

PHASE 3: User-Login and Email marketing capabilities. Overview: This phase will allow a user to generate an account with their full address. Because of this, any data pulled in via api will automatically display and the user will not have to enter their address when logged in. The user will also have the ability to subscribe for email updates on a specific issue for a state. The email connection could be made by API to add the users contact information to a list for that specific state/issue via mailchimp. PHASE 4: Navigate by State Overview: Instead of being able to start in Step 1 above with just a choose an issue navigation, the user will have an option to choose your state. On the general state page, the user will be displayed a list of all the issues - with excerpts - that are being tracked for that state. Each issue will be clickable to take them to the appropriate location in step 2 above. PHASE 5: Report Back Overview: At the bottom of the take action steps the user will see a button, report back. When clicking the button, the user will have the option, if logged in, to give a report - with a WYSIWYG editor on their actions. When submitted, this information will be submitted as a pending post under the users name. A blog page on the site will display all user-submitted reports when approved by admin. This would be separate from an official blog page that shows blogs submitted by staff. PHASE 6: Expanded Admin Levels Overview: In this phase, a new access level would allow admin capabilities based on state or issue alone. State-based would have access to all issues within that state. Issue-based would have access to all states within that issue. These admins would be able to update all backend information as needed.