Dashboard

I created a Beacon Hill compliance tracker to track legislative compliance in Massachusetts state government! You can view it at https://BeaconHillTracker.org/.

I’ve been wanting to contribute to the tech-activism space for a while, so I’m psyched that it’s finally coming together.

However, with great power comes great responsibility. A tool like this is—at the end of the day—just a tool, and can be used for positive change or for cheap partisan hackery. To prepare for the release of this tool, I’ve researched organizations that I want to introduce it to, and I’ll explain which ones I chose—and which ones I purposely omitted.

Criteria

Since the tool’s exposure is currently modest, I’m seeking to connect with Massachusetts watchdog organizations to help spread the word. Although my own political leanings may be visible in my posts, I deliberately evaluated organizations across the spectrum. To qualify for my outreach list, an organization had to fulfill the following three criteria:

  • Watchdog: The organization needed to track the Massachusetts legislature in some capacity. I wasn’t looking for brownie points with a purely political organization, but rather, one that would advance the cause.
  • Impactful: The organization needed to have a track record of measurable impact. After all, this tool is meant to inspire real change, not just serve as a conversation piece.
  • Earnest: I wasn’t looking for organizations that would use this tool just to leverage their own goals or fuel partisan talking points; they needed to already be doing some form of legislative monitoring so that my tool would serve as a force multiplier for their mission.

I researched and considered four organizations to evaluate against these criteria to determine if I should try to connect with them:

  • Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance: A right‑leaning “fiscal watchdog” which tracks money matters in state government.
  • Act On Mass: A progressive-leaning organization specifically dedicated (among other things) to promoting and advocating for transparency in state government.
  • Massachusetts Legislative Scorecard: A conservative scorecard that ranks state politicians according to “constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty, and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements.”
  • Progressive Mass: A progressive organization that produces (among other things) a legislative “progressive scorecard” to promote public accountability.

Preferred partners

I reached out to Progressive Mass and Act On Mass, and largely for similar reasons:

  • Both have a historical focus on promoting legislative compliance in and of itself, not as part of a specific political initiative, despite their overall left leanings.
  • They have a wide audience, and a proven track record of actual change.
  • As left-leaning organizations, they are expending political capital by putting a spotlight on the majority-Democratic state government.

I don’t know if this tool will appeal to them, but based on my analysis, they are most likely to use it for its intended goals.

Excluded organizations

Ultimately, I did not reach out to Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance:

  • The organization has faced criticism over its own transparency practices, which could undercut the intent of a transparency‑oriented tool.
  • While it functions as a legislative watchdog, its focus on tax‑cuts, limiting regulation, and a market‑oriented agenda means the tool risked being used to further content‑based outcomes, rather than compliance tracking.

I also did not reach out to the Massachusetts Legislative Scorecard. This is an organization that appears to track GOP compliance, not legislative compliance. For example:

H4750 replaces the term “paternity” with “parentage” and “child born out of wedlock” with “nonmarital child” to create more “inclusive” language. Additionally, it replaces the phrase “a mother and father” with “parents.” […] this bill conforms to the woke leftist culture that focuses on virtue signaling and political correctness.

Their analyses often have little to do with constitutionality, rules, or transparency. The intent of this organization seems to be to signal party alignment.

Conclusion

I want to address the fact that I did not select either right-wing group. Though I would not consider myself conservative, my decision was not based on partisan politics. Their desire for change simply appears to be more political than systemic, which is counter to my goals.

If you’d like to discuss how your organization might use this tool, please reach out using the tracker’s contact form.