BuildQuorum puts civil society in lawmaking

BuildQuorum has launched its new public participation platform, opening the way for citizens to interact with their political representatives online.

Rather than showing their support with just an online signature that doesn’t have as strong an impact, BuildQuorum users can contact their target representative, be it anyone from members of Congress to state legislators, and send a message directly to that person.

“One consistent theme among the hundreds and hundreds of people I talked to during the course of my campaigns was frustration with the process and a feeling that they weren’t being heard,” said Sean Bielat, founder and CEO of BuildQuorum. “Far too many Americans feel that their only participation in the political process is voting and aside from that, special interests control the agenda. I want the average American to act as his or her own ‘special interest’.”

Improving public participation in lawmaking has been a hot topic this year, and the Obama administration initiated its U.S Public Participation Playbook in February 2015.

A successful public participation system must address three main barriers to citizen engagement in rule-making: a lack of awareness, information overload, and unfamiliarity with how to participate effectively and the means of participating.

BuildQuorum”s platform enables citizens to meaningfully engage with the policy making process with its online political community that incites and encourages discussion, interaction, and participation.

“We created this platform to engage the public in politics and law-making and created an online community for discussion and debate,” continued Bielat. “By definition, a “quorum” is the minimum number of representatives required to discuss a legislative matter. The digital age offers us new opportunities to voice the opinions of the many, rather than the selected few, which should be taken into consideration before any decision is made.”