Knight Foundation
To create a digital platform that will display local laws and court decisions in a way that provides clarity and context.
The State Decoded will be a platform that displays state codes, court decisions and information from legislative tracking services to make government more understandable to the average citizen. While many state codes are already online, they lack context and clarity. With an improved layout, embeddable definitions of legal terms, Google News and Twitter integration, and an open API for state codes, this project aims to make important laws the centerpiece of media coverage.
Waldo Jaquith has been a website developer for 18 years and an open-government technology activist for 16 years. He holds a degree in political science from Virginia Tech and was a 2005 fellow at the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership. He and his wife live on a small farm near Charlottesville, Va., where he works for the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. He was received a "Champion of Change" award at the White House earlier this month.