“Public participation is essential to the legislative process in a representative democracy. Yet here in Massachusetts, it has not always been easy for residents to make their voices heard,” said Dan Jackson ’97, executive director of Northeastern Law’s NuLawLab. To meet that need, NuLawLab spearheaded the launch this spring of the Massachusetts Platform for Legislative Engagement (MAPLE) — a web-based tool that allows Massachusetts residents and organizations to easily submit testimony on pending state legislation on Beacon Hill. MAPLE is a collaboration led by Matthew Victor, a recent graduate of Boston College Law School, and data scientist Nathan Sanders, an affiliate of Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, together with NuLawLab and volunteer developers from Code for Boston.

The goals of this digital creation are to increase access to the legislative process, engage a wider set of stakeholders and perspectives in policymaking, distribute information about pending legislation and promote greater transparency in government. “MAPLE is a grassroots project driven by the incredibly talented volunteers of Code for Boston and made possible by the NuLawLab. We are taking a highly community-driven approach to raising the level of engagement between the residents of Massachusetts and our legislature,” said Sanders.