About Digital Democracy | Digital Democracy

The project was inspired by the decline in media coverage of state government and by the significant impact of decisions made in a state that ranks as the world’s fifth largest economy with an annual budget of about $300 billion. It is a portal for a general, non-expert audience to understand the people and activities in state government so there is a better opportunity for civic engagement and a healthier environment for decisions in the public interest. It is also intended to help journalism by providing reporters with quick and easy access to a vast amount of information.

The Digital Democracy website introduces each of the 120 California legislators and displays the current year’s agenda on six major topics, as seen in legislation. Our technology tools collect data throughout state government about legislation, votes, money, and politics as well as the transcripts of public hearings and floor sessions. That unique database is searchable from our website.

Finally, to help journalists identify stories about the legislative process, we built a custom artificial intelligence tool that scans the database to suggest story ideas for reporters. When reporters pursue these tips, the resulting stories appear on the web pages for legislators as well as on CalMatters. They are also shared with media throughout the state, as are the story ideas for reporters identified by the AI tool.

Digital Democracy was built in 2023 in a collaboration that included CalMatters, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and 10up, a global web development firm. The database and artificial intelligence were designed and built by faculty and students at Cal Poly, where an earlier version of Digital Democracy was launched in 2015 by former state Sen. Sam Blakeslee and then Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom at the university’s Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy. In 2023 the project was moved to CalMatters.

Funding for Digital Democracy at CalMatters comes from the Knight Foundation, Arnold Ventures and the Lodestar Foundation. Arnold Ventures was also a major funder of the earlier version of Digital Democracy. For more information about funding and other descriptions of CalMatters, please visit our “About Us” page.