It’s important to know what your government is up to. Historically, the public has relied on the media to keep us informed, but in this new information age we’re learning how little the media actually reports. Especially when it comes to local news. Just check out the Wisconsin State Journal’s local section.
Thankfully our state government has actually taken steps to keep citizens informed. It’s incredibly simple too. First go to Wisconsin Legislative Notifications Website and then register. I usually don’t like registering to view content on a website, but this service sends your requested information to your email address, so you must register. Once you’re registered, pick what you would like to be informed of based upon your chosen criteria; proposal number, committee, author and subject.
Proposal number is useful if you already know of a particular piece of legislation that you’d like to keep track of. Other than that, it won’t help you.
Committee is perhaps the most useful. If a particular issue interests you, then choose to be informed of any activity by the committee that oversees that issue. Keep in mind that usually several committees oversee an issue and sometimes it’s not readily apparent which committee would be involved. It takes a little digging, but you’ll be able to find exactly which committees are important to your issues.
Author is useful to keep track of your representatives. This service won’t tell you how your representative votes on a proposal, but it will tell you the activity on proposals authored by your representatives, or any representative you’d like to track.
Subject is the final and most vague of the choices. Just like Google, if you search for a single word, you’ll get a lot of information that isn’t what you’re looking for. However, if you’re willing to sift through the information, you’ll find what you’re looking for.