TexLege for iPhone

What is TexLege? – (Besides just a nickname for The Texas Legislature)

It’s handy reference guide for visitors, voters, contributors, lobbyists, interest groups, politicians (and their staff), i.e. anyone in, around, or interested in the Texas Capitol and the politics within.

The impetus for TexLege lies in the numerous days I’ve spent lost deep underground in the extension wing catacombs of the Texas Capitol, trying to find a legislator’s office with no cell signal or internet service on my phone, for directions.

But now I can guarantee I won’t be lost there again, and you won’t be either. Among a litany of other features, TexLege has pre-installed zoomable/scrollable maps of the complex, the extension wings, and the surrounding area, along with points of interest and a wheelchair accessability guide. Since the maps come pre-installed, you won’t need internet service to find your way around.

Additionally, TexLege also provides a fully searchable/indexed directory of legislators, their district offices, phone numbers, email addresses, web sites, biographical links, twitter addresses, chamber floor seeting charts, and Capitol office locations (with clickable links straight to the appropriate map), and editable notes individualized to each legislator (to help you remember who you talked to and when, or as a place to jot down appointment times and places).

Exclusive to TexLege – Unlike every other Congressional or state legislative iPhone  application out there, TexLege includes a Roll Call Index to evaluate and compare the partisanship for individual Texas House Representatives and Senators. The Roll Call Index originates from my doctoral dissertation and uses dimensional scaling analysis, from hundreds of thousands of record votes on the chamber floor, in order to position each legislator along a one-dimensional continuum. This appears as a familiar Left-Center-Right political spectrum. However, in this context, the index is not a measure of ideology, as in “he’s very liberal” or “very conservative”, nor should it be taken as such. It is a measure of marginalization between legislators in their record voting behavior, nothing more.

TexLege has a full directory of committees and their membership appointments, with phone numbers and web links for meeting schedules and bills under consideration.

Finally, TexLege provides a fully editable and customizable section of web resources and information links. It comes complete with numerous state agency links, but you may choose to clear these out in favor of adding political blogs or RSS political news feeds.

As of a few weeks ago, the 81st Regular Legislative Session is over, which means there’s not much immediate use for legislative bill searching in TexLege. However, I fully intend to implement this feature in the near future as a free update to the application.

One final note. Unfortunately, the iTunes store doesn’t allow developers to directly respond to comments and reviews. Therefore, if you have suggestions, support requests, or simply need more information, please contact me at TexLege.com, the application’s website.