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Start-ups aim for a more democratic lobbying system
Blastroots, a start up that connects citizens with lobbyists, meets in its founders’ home in Washington.(Credit:Jeffrey MacMillan/JEFFREY MACMILLAN FOR WASHINGTON POST)
By Catherine Ho
Posted: Nov. 4th, 2012
Last December, the Mobile Informational Call Act, which would have allowed companies to make robo-calls to cellphones, was halted by the bill’s sponsors, two congressmen from Nebraska and New York, after thousands of citizens weighed in to oppose the measure.
Nearly 12,000 of those citizens voiced their opposition through Popvox, a District-based start-up that aims to transform the top-down structure of policy making. Popvox is an online platform that collects correspondence between constituents and their representatives on certain bills and issues, organizes the data by state, and packages the information in pie charts and maps so lawmakers can easily spot where voters stand on a proposed bill. In the case of the Mobile Informational Call Act, 11,581 Popvox users lined up against the measure, while 117 supported it. And the bill, which was endorsed by the American Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was withdrawn.
Read More: WashingtonPost.com
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