Enabling and empowering citizen input at all levels of government is key to the success of democracies. 

At state and local levels, where legislators are often laypeople without significant research staff, policymakers rely on public input to shape their understanding of the proposals before them. Robust public participation in the legislative process also creates a positive feedback loop – citizens who feel their perspective is valued and impactful will be more apt to engage in the future. 

Despite the need for public participation to support good public policy processes, complex policy topics, legislative jargon, and obscure procedural rules can discourage engagement. This results in legislators receiving unbalanced perspectives and individuals feeling left out of decisions that impact their lives. 

Solving this dilemma is central to Plural’s mission to improve policy by increasing accessibility to the processes that shape it. Whether your perspective is shaped by lived experience, your education, or your profession, we know that perspective is a valuable component of a healthy democracy. 

Below we break down a few key steps to begin to develop your comfort and knowledge within the policymaking sphere at the state legislative level, so that you can bring your expertise into it. 

Mastering the Basics of Public Policy

From insurance regulations to public benefits to criminal law, policymakers cover a wide array of topics in their work. But beyond the complexities specific to these domains, it can be a challenge for advocates in related industries or for concerned citizens to know how to even begin to follow the policy developments that matter to them. 

In short, we recommend diving right into the policy process, but doing so with the resources and tools that will keep you from being overwhelmed. 

The state legislative level is a great place to start your public policy journey as it balances a wide scope, impact, and data availability with the approachable feel of a local unit of government. 

Most state legislatures hold legislative sessions annually at their state capitol building where they meet regularly for at least a few months to consider and pass new proposals to change state law. The exact schedule for when a legislature is in session varies significantly by state (see 2025 dates here) but most states begin their session in January and wrap up their work sometime between March and July. 

Bills are the main instrument that legislators at the state level use to change state law. Every state legislature makes their bills available to find and review online, although most of these websites are fairly dated and not incredibly user-friendly.

A tool like Plural can serve as a more intuitive place to find all of the information on the legislation you care about, across states. 

Bills are generally structured to show the changes they propose to make to existing law (often called state statute). This is generally reflected by proposed additions to existing law being underlined and proposed deletions from existing law being struck through. In Plural, we show these changes in green and red text, respectively. To read a bill, you will want to examine the additions and deletions within the context of the existing state statute. This will help you understand how the author of the bill is suggesting to change public policy.

View of legislation on Maine state legislative website
View of legislation on Plural Bill Tracking & Intelligence

Digesting this unique formatting can take some getting used to, and we advise that practice makes perfect. 

Fortunately many states make summaries available, and Plural provides the option to generate an AI bill summary so that you can check your reading of the bill against what we are seeing. 

Bill pages will also detail the “activity” of the bill, displaying its path through the public policy process. Analyzing the activity of past session’s legislation can help you identify the pathways that bills generally take on their way to becoming law. For bills in a current session, monitoring the activity will be your best way to stay updated on where the bill is in its process, and what may happen next. 

Navigating through bills and their associated actions is a great way to build your policy knowledge. While it may be a cumbersome process at first, you will find that these intimidatingly formatted policy documents are not that hard to decipher after all. 

Finding Your Area(s) of Expertise

Policy enacted by our state legislatures has the potential to impact many areas of our lives. Whether you are developing your policy knowledge for personal or professional purposes, it can be best to start with the knowledge you already have. After all, your lived experience or professional expertise may very well mean that you have more existing knowledge to bring to a policy conversation than some of the legislators themselves.

Once you have identified your focus, you can use a tool like Plural to search for proposals from past or current legislative sessions within that topic. If you’re focussed on something specific, like preventing book bans, a search for related keywords can surface what you’re looking for. 

Searching for legislation related to “book banning” in Plural Bill Tracking & Intelligence

If your advocacy area is more general, a good place to start is by reviewing your legislature’s committee structure. 

Committees are where a small group of legislators will work on bills related to a few similar subject areas. The Commerce and Labor committee, for example, will be one of the first stops for all legislation directly impacting businesses and their workers. 

Reviewing the work of a committee will give you a place to begin the exploration of what types of proposals they are considering. Additionally, the committee stage of the legislative process is generally the most accessible for public input, so you will be familiarizing yourself with the members you may soon share your perspective with.

Viewing legislative committee information in Plural Bill Tracking & Intelligence

Plural’s AI-assigned bill topics also neatly categorize bills by subject area, making it easier for you to discover what is happening in your field. 

Bill search results in Plural Bill Tracking & Intelligence

Putting This Knowledge Into Action

There are a number of ways in which you can engage with the public policy process as you develop your policy knowledge. State legislative work represents a great place to start because the scope of the work done by state legislators is sufficiently broad, but they are generally more accessible than members of Congress. 

One of the easiest ways to get involved is to connect with a legislator (either your representative or a sponsor of a bill you particularly support) and to have a conversation. Legislators are expected to use and value public input, and are often happy to have a conversation about what they’re working on. Advocacy groups that align with your position or are focused on your causes can be another great place to find like minds and suggested action steps. 

Most bills will go through a public hearing process at the committee stage and testifying at a public hearing is one of the most common and impactful ways you can ensure your voice is heard. While it may sound intimidating, speaking before a committee in support or opposition to a bill provides you with a direct line to the decision makers.

Conclusion

If you spend time in the policymaking field, you’ll hear from lawmakers and advocates alike that they got their start in policy because a specific issue that impacted them spurred them towards action. We believe that lowering the barrier to entry into this field can positively impact our democracy and build better outcomes. By providing the tools needed for this work through Plural, we aim to empower a community of advocates and citizens to ensure their voices are heard.