International Legislative Modernization Working Group Discusses Constituent Outreach

BY BEATRIZ REY

Participants from the International Legislative Modernization Working Group gathered recently to discuss existing initiatives that promote constituent engagement — both sharing information about the legislature and inviting public input.

Portal Ciudadano (Mexican Chamber of Deputies)

The Mexican Chamber of Deputies’ Portal Ciudadano provides Mexican citizens with information about the chamber, including:

• History of the chamber

• Information about the legislative process

• Information about how legislators are elected

• The rights and responsibilities of citizens

Portal Ciudadano also helps voters find out who their deputies are and how they can get in touch with them or their offices.

Congreso Virtual (Chilean Senate and Chamber of Deputies)

Chile’s Congreso Virtual allows constituents to offer input on bills being discussed in the country’s Chamber of Deputies and Senate. Featured bills are selected by the Offices of Participation of the Chamber and the Senate and the Congress’ Bicameral Transparency Group.

Constituents can participate in three ways:

• leaving comments about bills

• liking/disliking bills

• liking/disliking other constituents’ comments. Constituents whose comments get a high number of likes are motivated by the system to participate more in the platform

Staff transform public input indicaciones (indicators) into reports for lawmakers. The process is conducted by staff in the Chamber and automated with software in the Senate. Originally envisioned as an Artificial Intelligence (AI) process, staff quickly realized they needed to retain “human in the loop” review. They are currently studying how to bring AI back to the project while preserving human input.

To illustrate: One of the bills submitted for constituent input aimed to change labor laws to regulate remote work. 571 constituents interacted with the bill, with 97.5% in favor and a total of 275 comments made. The report also summarizes the recommendations made by constituents about the bill. The report is then shared with the committees responsible for discussing the bills, which can decide whether to incorporate the indicaciones into the bill.

Congress’ Bicameral Transparency Group, which runs Congreso Virtual, now wants to build connections with legislators in these committees to make sure that constituents’ insights are taken into account. The Group also wants to partner with legislators’ local district offices to advertise Congreso Virtual to constituents.

The Congreso Virtual code is open sourced and can be used by any legislature.

Beatriz Rey is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of São Paulo and a Fellow at POPVOX Foundation where she she runs the Comparative Legislative Strengthening Project, an information exchange on legislative modernization and an international network of legislative innovators.