Most high schoolers spend spring break sleeping in. I spent mine outside the bill room at 6am, grabbing calendars for my dad and his lobby partners. In college I took spring semesters off to intern at the Colorado State Capitol, plus one fall to run Senator Nancy Todd’s 2016 campaign. After graduating, I spent seven years selling software to government affairs teams trying to understand what happens inside state capitols.

I love this market, especially the hard parts. And I don’t see anyone building for how the hard work actually gets done.

If you want to know where a bill is or when it’s up, you have plenty of options. That’s the easy question. Arena is built for the hard ones:

1. What did the testimony look like on the Senate side? On last year’s version?
2. Did any members have questions for the sponsor? Did anyone want more information before deciding?
3. Was anyone a “yes for today” but skeptical? Could we swing them?
4. We can’t be the only ones with a problem with this bill. Who else should be in our coalition?

–– Henry Bowditch, Founder & CEO