OpenStates.org in public beta | Hacker News Reader

OpenStates.org in public beta

openstates.org

27 pointsaustinc10 comments

It's really nice to see all of this information in a format that is so easy to access, and so easy to navigate. I look forward to sharing this with my students in the fall (in Alaska).

Can you share a little about your funding model?

This is a project of the Sunlight Foundation: http://sunlightfoundation.com/about/funding/

Do you mind sharing what that funding covers? The smallest entry for "Who We Fund" [1] from the Sunlight Foundation in 2012 is $7500, and I don't see OpenStates listed. Does that mean there is very little funding, and this is mostly a volunteer effort?

I ask because I am interested in some non-profit work, and I am curious if developers on non-profit projects find ways to get paid a fair rate for their development work.

I'm just a fan and not affiliated with the project in any way, so unfortunately I can't help you there.

It looks like it's an in-house project at the Sunlight Foundation, by paid staff. The primary dev (going by GitHub checkins) seems to be Paul Tagliamonte, who is a Sunlight Foundation employee: http://sunlightfoundation.com/people/ptagliamonte/

Hi, I'm actually the lead dev (Paul works with me, but is a recent addition to the project). Glad to see the interest on here.

Our funding is down on that page under 2011, it comes from the Rita Allen foundation. We do get paid a fair rate (I'd say, granted it isn't what we could be making in some places but it isn't that far off, plus I get to write open source code all day and do something I care about.)

Fantastic. I'd love if you could tie in political contributions and voting patterns, as well as various types of patterns (which committees hold up what kinds of bills), etc.

We are planning to look at more of this, the site is just a step along the way. You can also check out our API (http://openstates.org/api/) you can play with the data yourself.

This is fantastic!

Bravo sunlight

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