Three Web Sites For the Public Policy Cognoscenti
30 March 2008“The Center for American Progress is a progressive think-tank dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through ideas and action. We are creating a long-term, progressive vision for America—a vision that policy makers, thought-leaders and activists can use to shape the national debate and pass laws that make a difference. The Center for American Progress is headed by John D. Podesta, former chief of staff to President William J. Clinton and a professor at Georgetown University Center of Law.”
The Center for American Progress covers a vast array of contemporary policy issues ranging from “Credit and Debt” and Bioethics and Science” to “Homeland Security” and even a special section of “Cartoons.” There are newsletters galore, and enough thoughtful analysis on this site to keep you busy for weeks. You really have to visit the site for yourself to appreciate what it has to offer.
“Justia is a legal media and technology company focused on making legal information, resources and services easy to find on the Internet. We provide free case law, codes, regulations, legal articles and legal blog databases, as well as community resources.
“We use the Google Mini to index our Supreme Court database and other legal content sections of our website. The Google Mini’s strength of results and ease of setup were important decision factors in choosing it as our search solution. Legal researchers who use our website to find information already know how to use Google.com so the Mini’s familiar user interface and search relevance has greatly improved our user experience.”
It is true that there are some other legal search websites (all listed on the Justia.com home page, by the way) but Justia.com just seems to be better organized and broader in scope. The site is primarily a well organized portal to legal content found all over the internet. “Legal Practice Areas” include links to labor law and intellectual property law, for example. The “Legal Research and Law Practice” section includes links to “legal forms” and “Laws: Cases and Codes,” among many others. Additional sections include “Cases in the News - Documents,” and “Public Interest and Pro Bono Projects.”
“The National Institute on Money in State Politics is the only nonpartisan, nonprofit organization revealing the influence of campaign money on state-level elections and public policy in all 50 states. Our comprehensive and verifiable campaign-finance database and relevant issue analyses are available for free through our Web site FollowTheMoney.org. We encourage transparency and promote independent investigation of state-level campaign contributions by journalists, academic researchers, public-interest groups, government agencies, policymakers, students and the public at large.”