Public Policy

Public policy can mean many things. It not only expresses our values as a society and dictates how we spend taxpayer dollars, but also shapes our everyday existence – from whether or not we can vote to how we pay parking tickets. But public policy is articulated through dense legal documents – legislation (laws), regulation (rules), executive orders, and guidance documents – enacted at the federal, state, and local levels. 

Why

How we access information – and what information we can access – has been completely revolutionized. Yet, public policy remains inaccessible; it is hard to 1) find, 2) read, 3) understand, and 4) change. This is intentional. Such opacity ensures that public policy remains in the hands of politicians, lobbyists, and lawyers – those with power and privilege. On the flip side, making public policy easy to navigate and understand opens up the possibility for people-centered policymaking.  

Responsive

Public policy can feel inefficient, at best, and out of touch to the point of irrelevancy, at worst. RPP creates feedback loops to design stronger systems and, further, provides a space to call out otherwise unaccountable actors, both public and private. For example, private corporations seamlessly collect vast amounts of data that could transform public policymaking (think transportation, banking, and healthcare). RPP allows users to identify places where such data could be deployed in the service of public good.