By Jay Oliveira
My time at Plural has been transformative.
As a third-year policy student at Suffolk University in Boston, I had already spent hours pouring over legislative websites for my coursework. I struggled to use legislative sources that would open up dozens of unreadable files, or would make it unclear what chamber the bill had originated in.
Plural was a tool that I knew students like myself needed to have in their toolbelt, and I wanted to be part of the team that created it.
As a Legislative Research Intern at Plural, I was tasked with verifying the information on its platform across multiple jurisdictions and data categories, including bills, committees, people, events, and vote data.
My work at Plural consisted of two main things: detective work and reporting. I looked at our data to see if I could find any issues, and if soI, I’d report those errors to our data team and give them the information they needed to correct any bugs. Navigating legislative sources online was by far the hardest part of every data quality check, and often the most time-consuming.
State legislatures are able to present information in unique and often convoluted ways. Unfortunately, not all legislative websites are intuitive. I spent hours navigating sources that felt like a maze, clicking from one tab to the next trying to find out how many votes a bill received, or where relevant committee data was stored.
Plural, on the other hand, is a software tool that is easy to navigate and customizable for my use. As a student, Plural was exactly what I needed to efficiently navigate legislative websites.
When tracking bill progress for policy analysis, I was asked to visualize a bill from the point of introduction in the chamber, all the way to its implementation. This process involves analyzing several bill versions, assessing markups made in both chambers, and searching through countless committee meetings for the correct vote.
With Plural’s comprehensive bill features, such as Bill View, the Details page, and the Activity section, these questions are streamlined into one workspace.
In real-time, I saw my research time being cut in half, with more room left in the development process to focus on analysis and comparison.
Jay OLiveira
Legislative Research Intern
Finding My Place
Plural was an opportunity to grow my skills and learn from a team that was built on the tenets of collaboration. My involvement in team meetings allowed me to learn about the work of other departments and implement solutions that would impact our users positively. These opportunities helped me define my own role by understanding what the rest of the team accomplishes day-to-day.
Learning the Legislative Process
I had assumed that policymaking was inherently slow in nature. But during my time with Plural, I realized that in legislatures of all sizes there is an enormous amount of progress made daily. Elected representatives regularly work to propose, review, and pass legislation for their constituents—and things move fast. Most legislatures begin with thousands of bills at the start of the session and must decide what priorities come first.
With this in mind, I learned that information truly is power. The difference between advocating for a bill and letting it die in committee can be as small as knowing the correct date for its first hearing. Advocacy requires sustained effort to ensure that the proposed policy reaches the governor’s desk before the session ends.
Jay OLiveira
Legislative Research Intern
Looking Forward
The process I used for running data quality checks has allowed me to streamline my work flow. Through trial and error, I was able to perfect how I approach and analyze discrepancies in data. These are skills that I will use in every research project I tackle in the future.
Additionally, the networking opportunities I was given at Plural were boundless. In one-to-one meetings with the Plural team, I was able to demystify the so-called informational interview. I learned how to talk to people about their expertise, experiences, and their hobbies. In turn, I discovered that I can share my own interests and professional goals, opening up conversations for feedback and growth.
Final Takeaways
Plural has been a stepping stone into the world of legislative information services and policy tracking. The company structure, connections made, and the work I’ve done has allowed me to develop and transform my skills. My goal was to contribute meaningfully to a product that I believed in. At the end of my time here, I can boast that I was given every opportunity to use my knowledge, voice, and passion for policy analysis.
I’d like to thank the team who have taken the effort to make my time at Plural so impactful. To everyone I’ve met, I have appreciated the time spent with each of you and your insight. I can’t wait to see what Plural has in store for the future.
