The tool, Digital Democracy, leverages artificial intelligence to search through hearings minutes, legislation, and more across a range of topics. For example, the tool quickly parses through available records that mention the search term “California Department of Technology,” sorting the information by categories such as related bills, lawmakers, hearings, organizations and more.
CalMatters is a nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization that was founded in 2015 to cover California government and the issues facing residents. It’s supported through a mix of foundations and donors.
Senior Editor and CalMatters co-founder David Lesher said an earlier version of the project launched in 2015 as an online data warehouse, but it was ultimately shuttered years later when funding ran dry. This new iteration points new technological capabilities at a massive amount of data — owned and housed by CalMatters — in the hopes of empowering journalists and others to hold government accountable.
“There’s a high interest in covering the legislators — their local legislators, especially — but … the newsroom just doesn’t have the capacity or the expertise to do that like it used to,” he told Industry Insider — California.
Lesher explained that because the AI used by the Digital Democracy platform is trained to identify the patterns in the policymaking process, it is easier for users to find valuable information without having to conduct exhaustive searches.
According to the tool’s description, it “tracks every word spoken in public hearings, every dollar donated to politicians, every bill introduced, every vote cast and more.”
In its published methodology, CalMatters notes that:
- Transcripts: Every word uttered in a public hearing or floor session is captured in the database. This archive spans from January 2023 to present and is typically available within 48 hours of a hearing.
- Bill information: The database includes the text of every bill, amendments, bill analysis, vote, supporters and opponents. This includes information dating back to 2013.
- Financial information: This includes campaign donations, independent expenditures, political party spending, gifts, travel and behests. Donations, expenditures and party spending information is available from 2013 to 2023.
- District data: This information includes voter registration, election results and demographics. Voter registration and demographics data dates back to 2022.
In its methodology, creators noted that the tool comes with some limitations that should be considered when using the data it produces.
“One of the greatest challenges in using data to create transparency in state government is that there is no standardized identification required when a person, organization or company testifies in a public hearing or donates money to a campaign,” CalMatters wrote.
To address this issue, the organization is using facial recognition technology and human oversight to improve the accuracy of identity-related data. Similarly, videos of hearings and floor sessions are routed through a transcription service before being reviewed and corrected by contractors.
The platform will continue to evolve as new technologies become available, Lesher said, adding that plans to extend the tool into other states are in the works.
“There’s no question that technology in this area is changing fast. I think we will grow into two things: the technology including artificial intelligence and seeing how the tool is applied, and what’s most helpful. We will iterate into making it as effective as we can,” he said.
