Wiki used to help pass bill

On Friday, the Utah House of Representatives passed the first Universal School Voucher bill in the nation. The bill is destined to become law according John Fund in the Wall Street Journal and was also the first real test of wikifying the legislative process.

In an email, Representative Steve Urquhart noted to me:

Urquhart took another step into digital democracy when he recently launched Politicopia — a simple social-text wiki for people to congregate and discuss issues and legislation.

To bolster his new effort at interaction and transparency, Urquhart posted his school voucher bill in its entirety on Politicopia before he distributed it to his colleagues in the Utah House. Soon the page expanded with pro and con sections with findings from states like Vermont and Wisconsin accompanied by a section for comments, as wel as links to news articles about the bill.

“For six years we’ve been chasing our tail on this bill, and today the bill passed in very large part because of Politicopia. When private dialogue was made public, the main area of criticism was publicly revealed to be fictitious,” Urquhart told WebProNews in an email.

Beyond the voucher page on the wiki, other pages exist for legislation about college tuition for illegal immigrants, payday lending, and other issues facing the state legislature.

In writing about the brief history of Politicopia, Urquhart boasts that “One week into the experiment, Politicopia is working. Citizens are participating and citizens are being heard. Legislators are talking to me about things they’ve read on Politicopia. Because of input I received, I have changed a position I’ve held for years. Already, citizens are using Politicopia to shape the debate.”