Introduction

Welcome to the Documentation for the Plural Open Data project (formerly Open States). The sections below cover contributing to scrapers & data, and how to use the API.

About Plural Open

Plural Open strives to improve civic engagement at the state level by providing data and tools regarding state legislatures. We aim to serve members of the public, activist groups, journalists, and researchers with better data on what is happening in their state capital, and to provide tools to reduce barriers to participation and increase engagement.

The project aggregates legislative information from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. This information is then standardized, cleaned, and published to the public via PluralPolicy.com/open, a powerful API, and bulk downloads.

This work was begun as the Open States project and has a long history. We moved the work under Plural Open in 2023.

Our open data work is done in the open, and depends in part on contributors to make this important resource available. Thank you for your interest in our community, whether you are looking to use our bulk data or APIs or interested in contributing data or code, we're glad to have you here.

Communication

When joining a new community, it can be tough to figure out where to ask questions, provide feedback, or help out. Don't worry! As long as you're respectful and follow our Code of Conduct, we're happy to have you!

Here are some guidelines regarding the best way to get in touch or contribute. Do note that Open States is a volunteer-powered project, and all of the core developers have day jobs; we're excited to talk to you, but it may sometimes take a bit of time to get back to you.

Recommendations

Want to ask a general question, have a conversation, or keep up with the community?

We have a Matrix chat space that you can join if you're interested in being a part of the community. The Matrix space (similar to Slack) is a good way to raise an emergency issue (API seems down, etc.) or ask questions about how to get involved/contribute.

Have a private question, or a security concern?

Email support@pluralpolicy.com; only the administrative team can see these.

Have you found an error or issue in the Open States data? Have a technical issue not related to the data itself?

File an issue on our bug tracker. And before you do, quickly check whether anyone else there has already reported the same bug.

Discouraged Methods of Communication

Please avoid using these channels to get in touch with us:

Personal email addresses of Open States developers

Please respect our boundaries & refrain from contacting any of the developers directly, unless we ask you to do so.

Twitter (or any other social media)

We mainly use the @openstates twitter account to make announcements, and don't have the resources to provide technical support or other feedback on Twitter.