About StateLens
StateLens began with a simple problem: keeping up with a legislative session shouldn’t be this difficult.
What started as a practical tool for following legislation in Louisiana has grown into a shared public-benefit platform where organizations can contribute what they know, discover where they agree, and put better information in front of legislators when it matters.
Built for Both Sides of the Legislative Process
What StateLens Does
For the public, StateLens makes official bills, amendments, schedules, votes, and published organizational positions easier to find and compare—without requiring an account. Lawmakers and staff can see the public record in context. Journalists and researchers can trace a measure across the session and follow the sources behind the information.
Participating organizations use private workspaces to review bills, coordinate priorities, record positions and the reasons for them, and choose what to publish. StateLens keeps that organizational work connected to the same official legislative record the public can inspect.
How It Started
From Spreadsheet to Platform
Key Milestones
StateLens grew out of years of practical legislative research—not a software pitch looking for a problem.
The beginning
Louisiana Vote-Recs
StateLens began as little more than a practical system for keeping track of the bills we cared about during Louisiana’s legislative session. There was no plan for a national platform. We simply needed a better way to organize the work.
January 2026
Oklahoma Proof of Concept
Then Oklahoma called. What had been built around the Louisiana Legislature suddenly had to work somewhere else—with different legislative systems, different organizations, and different ways of doing things. Oklahoma became the proof that the idea could travel.
August 2026
StateLens v3
Expanding into additional states exposed a bigger opportunity. The most valuable information wasn’t simply legislative data. It was what participating organizations knew about that legislation. StateLens evolved to put those observations and positions alongside the bills themselves.
Today
A Growing Network
With Louisiana and Oklahoma operating and additional states coming online, StateLens is becoming shared infrastructure for organizations that want to understand legislation, contribute what they know, and see where others have reached the same conclusions.
Michael Lunsford
Michael began building StateLens while trying to solve his own legislative tracking problem at New Louisiana Foundation. What started as a collection of practical tools grew through repeated use during legislative sessions—and through the ideas, frustrations, and contributions of the organizations that began using it.
Built With Our Partners
StateLens may have started in Louisiana, but it couldn’t have become what it is today without the organizations willing to experiment with us.
Our early partners brought something more valuable than another source of legislative data. They brought institutional knowledge: years of experience with particular issues, legislators, agencies, and policies. Their questions exposed problems we hadn’t considered. Their observations shaped new features. And their willingness to contribute what they knew demonstrated what StateLens could become.
Each organization remains independent. They don’t need to coordinate their agendas or agree with one another. StateLens simply gives them a common place to contribute what they know—and makes agreement visible when it occurs.
Among the organizations that helped shape StateLens in its early expansion.
How StateLens Organizes Information
How the System Fits Together
StateLens places official bills, amendments, schedules, votes, and other legislative records beside the positions that participating organizations choose to publish. Source links stay with the material so readers can check the record for themselves.
The result is different from traditional coalition building. Organizations don’t have to coordinate in advance or adopt a common agenda. Each can independently research legislation and publish its own position.
StateLens makes the resulting agreement visible—to other organizations, to the public, and to legislators considering the same bill.
The organizations don’t have to cooperate for their knowledge to become more useful together.
Who Operates StateLens
StateLens is a public-benefit project of New Louisiana Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to civic transparency and education.
The Foundation develops and maintains the platform while participating organizations contribute their legislative knowledge, observations, and institutional experience.
Financial contributions help maintain the infrastructure and expand StateLens into additional states. They do not purchase access, influence, or positions within the project.
Explore StateLens
Use StateLens to follow legislation in Louisiana or Oklahoma, or see all current state sites.
Organizations that need to track bills and publish positions can see how participation works. Questions and corrections are welcome through the contact page. The longer personal account of how StateLens grew from Louisiana work is available at NewLouisiana.org.