You are here

Prof. John Wilkerson's LegEx Data Tool in UW News: New, UW-developed data tool tracks state legislative process, from first draft to final law 

Submitted by Stephen Dunne on February 21, 2020 - 1:37pm

Political Science Professor and Chair John Wilkerson's Legislative Explorer (LegEx) has been featured by UW News.

This new data visualization tool helps voters and others curious to visually explore the lawmaking process.
Prof. Wilkerson created the web site and tool along with undergraduate Rohnin Randles. "The site taps into data from LEG-TECH, the Washington State Legislature’s Legislative Service Center. Each night, a new batch of data is pulled and used to update the database running the visualization, to keep the site as current as possible.'LegEx doesn’t capture everything the Legislature does, such as meeting with constituents, amending bills in committee, or voting on the floor,' said Wilkerson. 'But we do hope that Washingtonians of all ages find Legislative Explorer to be an engaging and informative — even fun — way to explore the activities of their legislature.'”

Randles said the visualization is especially effective at illustrating the difficulty of lawmaking. In any given term, only about 12% of the approximately 5,000 bills introduced will be signed by the governor and become law.

For the full article please link here.

LegEx site featured in the article.

Share