Electronic government means doing more than putting transactions and information online. Electronic government means improving the democratic process. In this first Digital Legislatures Award, the Center for Digital Government and Government Technology magazine recognize the legislatures that have made it simpler for the public to participate in legislative activities.


Despite its importance, the legislative process is a mystery to most.

Ask the average person what it takes for a bill to become a law in his or her state, and you'll likely get a blank stare in reply.

To shed a little electronic sunshine on how legislatures work, states have created a depth of online services for the public, which are being honored with the first Digital Legislatures Awards from the Center for Digital Government and Government Technology magazine.

State legislatures were ranked based on their service offerings in the following catergories:

- Can citizens easily follow online the decisions made by the Legislature, and direct comments and suggestions to shoe those elected to represent their interests?

- In the state Legislature, how is computing used in the House and Senate?

- Does the public have remote access to legislative proceedings?

Because so much progress has been made, ranking the states has proven difficult, resulting in a three-way tie for third.

"We looked at computer usage in the states' legislatures - whether the members used laptops as part of their everyday routine," said Cathilea Robinett, executive director of the Center for Digital Government. "We looked at broadband deployment in legislative chambers. We looked at streaming audio and video on legislatures' Web sites. We looked at the functionality and effectiveness of the legislatures' Web sites as the final factor in determining the winners. There were subtle differences between all the sites."


And The Winner Is ...

Arizona takes top honors in the 2002 Digital Legislatures Award.

The Legislature's Web site contains complete information on all state legislation. The Arizona Legislative Information System (ALIS) allows the public to create a free, individualized bill-tracking system to select bills to track and receive alerts on. All bills are online and searchable by keyword, bill number, bill title and sponsor name.

Constituents can find complete e-mail addresses for members of the state's Legislature, and can search for elected representatives via ZIP code or a map of the state's legislative districts. Updates to the Web site occur 15 to 20 minutes after information is posted to the Legislature's internal ALIS network.

Arizona residents can use the Legislature's Web site to access streaming video of all committee hearings and legislative activities on the floor in the House and the Senate.

"Arizona was head and shoulders above the rest," Robinett said. "Their push technology is very, very robust in terms of what sort of legislative notifications one can sign up for."

Creating a digital legislature is simply part of electronic government, said Craig Stender, CIO of Arizona, drawing a parallel between the increase of demand for legislative services online and other government services.

"With electronic government and our digital democracy efforts, what we find is that we're still in the phase where citizens are pleasantly surprised with our efforts," Stender said. "But you can see the ratcheting up of expectations with things like vehicle renewal and being able to view legislative sessions online; it's still new and it's still exciting and people are still forgiving of things that don't go right."

Providing as much legislative information as possible is also an exercise in civic education, he said, and helps chip away the lack of knowledge that most citizens have of the legislative process.