Ga. lawmakers eye technology to improve process | Online Athens

ATLANTA — In the final days of Georgia’s legislative session, bills move quickly between chambers and in and out of conference committees as lawmakers work to ensure the final version contains everything they want.

It can be a challenge to keep track of all the changes, with lawmakers scanning printed copies of multiple versions of the same bill. This past session, however, members of the Georgia House had an advantage over their Senate counterparts thanks to an internal website designed by a state lawmaker that compares versions and highlights changes electronically.

“Sometimes on Day 39 of 40 we may be dealing with 40 or 50 bills, and some bills you are familiar with and others you are not,” said state Rep. Mike Dudgeon, R-Johns Creek, who built the website. “This allows you to say this is the Senate version of Bill 123 and you can quickly see what the Senate amended and it makes it easier to decide if you have any problems with what you are about to vote on. It saves a ton of time.”

The lawmakers’ website is just one example of efforts nationally to use technology to streamline the legislative process and, in some cases, increase transparency. And state lawmakers from around the country recently shared best practices during a meeting in Atlanta of the National Conference of State Legislatures. And while efforts have been underway for years to reduce paper use both for environmental and cost-saving reasons, lawmakers continue to look for ways to utilize emerging technology to improve operations.

“I think we have to look at a lot of initiatives that other states are doing to use technology to bring the legislative process into the 21st Century,” said House Speaker David Ralston.

Ralston said he has asked the new clerk of the House to research possible upgrades and praised the work done by Dudgeon to develop the internal website.

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