Edit wiki/politician-tracker.md — ideas

---
first_captured: 2025-12-22
sources:
- sources/ideaflow/2025-12-22_what-are-my-politicians-doing-projectidea.md
- sources/google-sheets-ideas.md
status: raw
tags:
- politics
- civic
- software
title: politician tracker
type: idea
updated: 2026-04-10
visibility: public-edit
---

# politician tracker

"what are my politicians doing?" — also covers general political updates on random things. a civic awareness tool that summarizes relevant political activity for your representatives.

**spreadsheet evaluation:** originality 4/10, excitement 3/10, MVP 2-4 weeks. competitive landscape: GovTrack, Congress.gov, Vote Smart, Countable (now Causes), Represent.Us track congressional activity, Ballotpedia covers state level — several apps have tried and failed to get sustained consumer engagement, the idea resurfaces every election cycle. data available via congress.gov API and OpenStates. challenge is making it engaging enough for repeat use. tech depth 3/10, labeled [ARCHIVE] ("data viz project, not deep").

---

## timeline

- [2025-12-22] captured — political awareness app
- [2026-04-10] google sheets evaluation — 4/10 originality, 3/10 excitement, [ARCHIVE] tier