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(mini) Daily Legislative Update 🐝
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Table of Contents
How the Topeka Buzz Works
With Topeka closed for winter weather yesterday, this morning marks the first weekday in quite some time where I haven’t had to scramble to process dozens and dozens of draft pieces of legislation. If you’ve been studiously reading these updates, you’ve probably assumed that there’s some sort of “magic” automation making this possible; nobody could possible be reading 100 documents per day!
The short answer: it’s a combination of old-fashioned software automation, new-fangled AI analysis, and some sprinkles of human curation and editorial oversight. Every night, our custom software downloads newly-published documents from the Kansas Legislature website–draft bills, amendment reports, fiscal notes, supplemental notes, committee agenda and meeting minutes, chamber journals, and chamber calendars. (Over 1,500 documents have been published thus far!)
This custom software which we lovingly call Swiper, diligently processes each document and stores it in our database:
First, it finds and downloads the new documents.
We then analyze the documents to determine when they were published (you’d be shocked to learn that the structure of the ksleg website, and the contents of the PDF files, isn’t always very well structured…)
Once we know what we’re working with, we use multiple stages of AI prompts to analyze their contents, score them on a standardized rubric, and categorize them based on the actual contents of the bill.
The analyzed documents are then summarized (again, using AI) in multiple stages. At this point, the bills have been automatically published to the billbee.ai site and are searchable.
An initial draft of the Topeka Buzz newsletter is generated, using a combination of the above summary information and some additional AI prompting to assist with parsing and interpreting what’s contained in the chamber journals and the daily calendar.
All of the narrative is still hand-crafted, but it wouldn’t be possible to process all of this content so quickly without the help of automation (and AI).
Swiper the Bee
Information vs. Advocacy
A common question or piece of feedback I’ve received over these first weeks of Topeka Buzz and Capitol Bee is “why aren’t you doing more advocacy work?1” My opinion and expectation is that we are just at the beginning of a generational swing away from the modern democratic institutions that have governed Kansas, America, and the world since the end of World War II. We’ve arrived at this moment because of persistent, organized efforts.
Advocacy will be critically important, but so will strategy and coalition-building and improving the ways in which we educate each other (including people across political party boundaries). What we are witnessing today in Topeka and DC was decided on November 5; we are getting what we voted for.
Our mission (and our strategy) with these newsletters is to amplify facts. One lesson from my Kansas Senate campaign last year was how difficult it can be to persuade somebody to let go of factually inaccurate beliefs when their entire life has been saturated with commentary to the contrary. Finding common ground requires, at a bare minimum, finding ways to align on a shared set of beliefs about what is real. That’s why you won’t see (much) editorializing about the information presented in these posts. It’s critical to establish sources of information that can be seen as trustworthy to all.
Chapter 2 of Intended Consequences
The next chapter of Intended Consequences in online! (Have we invented “dystopian political futurism” as a new literary genre? Maybe?) In this chapter, as the legislature tightens its grip, Rachel watches in real-time as public schools are gutted and big-money donors cement the state’s one-party rule—while most of her neighbors don’t even seem to notice.
Read Chapter 2 now (or get started with Chapter 1).
Unfortunately, all of the automation and AI analysis costs money to operate. We’re only covering about 25% of our server costs so far. Please consider supporting this work by upgrading to Supporter.
Upcoming Actions for February 13
House of Representatives
Session Time: 11:00 AM
Committee Updates:
Appropriations (9:00 AM): Request for bill introductions and possible action on bills previously heard.
Legislative Modernization (9:00 AM): Presentation on Agency IT Security Audits (closed session).
Local Government (9:00 AM): Hearing on HB2160.
Education (1:30 PM): Hearing on HB2137.
Welfare Reform (1:30 PM): Possible action on bills previously heard.
General Government Budget (3:30 PM): Meeting on call of the chair.
K-12 Education Budget (3:30 PM): Hearing on HB2320.
Social Services Budget (3:30 PM): Hearing on HB2314.
Transportation and Public Safety Budget (3:30 PM): Meeting on call of the chair.
Senate
Session Time: 2:30 PM
Committee Updates:
Agriculture and Natural Resources (8:30 AM): Hearing on SB211 - Authorizing wildlife commission to submit proposed rules.
Public Health and Welfare (8:30 AM): Hearing on SB67 - Nurse anesthetists' independent practice and abortion prohibitions.
Financial Institutions and Insurance (9:30 AM): Hearing on SB42 - Establishing online insurance verification system.
Government Efficiency (9:30 AM): Possible final action on bills previously heard.
Have any ideas or feedback just let us know!
1 By “advocacy work,” I’m referring to motivating readers in some sort of “call-to-action” such as calling an elected official or submitting testimony.
