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31 Days of October with Quorum

October 25, 2017

Quorum is the most comprehensive database of legislative information and constituent analytics on the market for Hill professionals. 

Elected officials and their staff use Quorum to track issues through the legislative process, on the internet and across social media platforms. With Quorum, Hill staffers are able to identify unlikely allies on key issues. The powerful data available at your fingertips can help you find out which Member of Congress is most vocal on a given issue, whose constituents are most likely to be impacted by a certain bill or event, to immediately identify any changes to legislation and easily connect with the staffers who are working on a particular bill.

 

To celebrate the partnership between Quorum and IQ, we'll be sharing one interesting fact from Quorum's database every day in October. 

 

  1. Combined, members of Congress tweet over 400,000 times per year.

  2. Members of Congress collectively deliver over 24,000 speeches from the floor a year.

  3. Collectively, Members of Congress cosponsor over 77,000 bills each year.

  4. Over 4,000 bills are introduced in Congress each year.

  5. Members of Congress collectively make around 373,000 individual voting decisions per year.

  6. The average Republican in Congress has missed around 2% of floor votes.

  7. But, the average Democrat in Congress has missed around 3% of floor votes.

  8. The top 3 most shared news outlets by Members of Congress are CNN, FoxNews and MSNBC.

  9. Senate Republicans represent states with the highest uninsured rates.

  10. The top key words mentioned by Members of Congress on social media for the past week were "woman" for Democrats, and "tax" for Republicans. See what else their conversations have included:
                                          

  11. On average, the 115th Congress is among the oldest in history.

  12. The average age of the Leadership in the House is 48 in the GOP and 72 for Democrats.

  13. The 115th Black Caucus is the largest in the Caucus' history.

  14. There are 105 women serving in the 115th Congress - occupying almost a fifth of the chambers.

  15. The average House Democrat votes against their party 6% of the time.

  16. Senator Hassan has been the most vocal Member of Congress on the opioid crisis - mentioning it over 136 times in the 115th Congress.

  17. Rep. Pramila Jayapal is the most vocal Member of Congress on immigration; she's mentioned it over 600 times in statements this Congress.

  18. When it comes to cybersecurity, Rep. Langevin is the most vocal Member of Congress. He has mentioned it over 130 times in the 115th Congress.

  19. Sen. Richard Blumenthal has sponsored or cosponsored over 340 bills this Congress - more than any other Senator.

  20. Sen. Dianne Feinsten may be the most effective Senator in the 115th Congress, she has sponsored or cosponsored 45 bills that have been enacted this session, more than any other Senator.

  21. Rep. Pete Sessions has sponsored or cosponsored the most enacted bills in the House this Congress - 22 in total!

  22. Washington, DC's Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has sponsored or cosponsored over 690 bills this Congress, far surpassing any of her colleagues.

  23. Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ-9) is the most bipartisan Democrat in the 115th Congress. She's cosponsored more Republican sponsored bills than any of her Democratic colleagues this Congress. Here's the top most bipartisan Democrats:

  24. The most bipartisan Republican in the 115th Congress is Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC-3). Here are the top 10 Republicans that have sponsored Democratic bills:

  25. Democrats in Congress have mentioned "fake news" in floor statements 45 times in the past year, compared to 4 times from Republican Members.

  26. Democrats in the 115th Congress have mentioned Russia from the floor twice as many times as GOP Members in the past year.

  27. More than half of the Senators up for reelection in 2018 will be over the age of 65.

  28. Only 2% of Congress represent a region of the US-Mexico border.

  29. Elected officials mentioned "Comey" in social media posts and floor statements over 1500 times in 2016, and over 5400 times in 2017. That's an increase of 257%!

  30. The average Republican and the average Democrat in the Senate vote against their party 9% of the time.

  31. Sen. Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, has been the most vocal member on net neutrality mentioning it 84 times in the last year.

 

That's it for our Quorum campaign! Thanks for tuning in all month for fun facts from Quorum. Please email house.sales@leidos.com if you're interested in learning more about how Quorum can transform your legislative strategy.

Saving Money with Pre-Event Polling

October 18, 2017

Connecting over the phone is one of the most effective ways to engage a broad spectrum of constituents in meaningful dialogue. Recently, two of the prominent vendors supporting the U.S. House of Representatives, Leidos Digital Solutions and Broadnet, introduced Surveyor® – an innovative phone polling solution that integrates constituent poll data with Leidos’ IQ CRM software.

This state-of-the-art survey platform is propelling citizen engagement and transforming the way town halls are conducted. Surveyor provides elected officials cutting-edge insight into their constituents’ most pressing interests and concerns, while simultaneously scrubbing their phone data for bad numbers that drive up town hall costs.

House offices are seeing town hall participation up by nearly 20% and event costs down by as much as 10% after just one Surveyor deployment.

Using Surveyor, elected officials can create and send surveys to a broad constituent audience before spending funds on a telephone town hall event. This intuitive survey-building tool is configured to produce meaningful results with the ability to convert the data into charts and graphs for real-time, instant analysis. Best of all, the poll data can be readily imported into IQ for easy access when planning future events. Savvy communications directors are leveraging this information to target specific demographics and ensure that their Representatives are addressing the issues that most concern their constituents during each town hall.

Surveyor also flags phone numbers that trigger undeliverable calls, also known as operator intercepts. These numbers include disconnected, changed, unassigned, or Do-Not-Call numbers and represent sunk costs for offices at every event. By using Surveyor before conducting a town hall, communications staff are building final dial-out lists virtually free from these unreachable numbers. This saves taxpayer dollars by helping offices avoid paying for unnecessarily large dial out lists. The operator intercept data is also uploaded into IQ which reduces the amount of time staff spend scrubbing data and building town hall audiences.

Surveyor data can be used to measure trends in public opinion while dramatically reducing costs.

Even more importantly, Surveyor can also be employed to enrich elected officials’ understanding of voter sentiment and allow them to make decisions that truly represent their districts. Not only does this drive constituent satisfaction, but on a grander scale it inspires engaged citizens to exert more influence over public policy and empowers Representatives to be more responsive. More efficient spending also means that elected officials are able to host town halls more frequently and establish a robust ongoing dialogue with the people they serve.

Since it was introduced, Surveyor has been generating truly remarkable results. One Representative from North Carolina scheduled a Surveyor poll through Leidos before conducting a town hall event targeting nearly 100,000 constituents. The final operator intercept rate for the event was less than 5%, meaning the Representative was able to reach nearly 100% of their targeted constituents. The office was extremely pleased with their results from using Surveyor and will be employing the platform for subsequent town hall events.

A North Carolina Member office saw operator intecept levels below 5% after just a single Surveyor poll--saving potentially thousands of dollars in event costs.

Leidos offers Surveyor polling through its telephone town hall menu for a very low price. Put this low cost and highly effective strategy to work for your constituents.  Contact your Leidos sales representative, IQ consultant, or house.sales@leidos.com to schedule your Surveyor and town hall events today!

Bridging the Knowledge Gap on Capitol Hill

June 11, 2017

As most Capitol Hill professionals can attest, Congressional staffers are stretched pretty thin these days.  With today's 24/7 news cycle, seemingly constant international crises and partisan politics reaching fever pitch, there's plenty of work to go around in Congressional offices.  With that said, there are other factors that contribute to the heavy workloads on the Hill.  Staff turnover and stagnant pay has become a real problem in Congress and has led to a widening gap in institutional knowledge.  A study from the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) found that there are fewer House staff and fewer legislative support agency personnel now than at any time since 1979. The effect of this lack of support staff is felt most acutely in the staffs for the Congressional Research Office, the Government Accountability Office, and the Congressional Budget Office who have lost 45% of their combined staff from 1975 to 2015.

The issue is exacerbated by the fact that on average each House member represents about 200,000 more constituents today than they did 30 years ago, while the average Senator represents 1.6 million more. 63% of the DC staffers polled by the CMF stated that they wanted to find another job, most often due to the fact that salaries have gone unchanged (and in some cases decreased) in the past two decades. With a competitive and thriving market for former Hill talent, staffers can easily find higher pay in the private sector. Because of this, the average age for a DC-based Hill staffer is only 31.  Fortunately, most professionals on the Hill are called to this line of work not because of the financial benefits, but due to the unique opportunity to make a true difference in the direction of the country.  In fact, 94% of Congressional staffers choose to stay in their jobs rather than test the private sector, “because they believe what they’re doing is meaningful”.

This gap in experience and education is making it more and more difficult for Members to get the information they need for important legislative actions like determining voting positions and drafting new bills. More and more Congressional offices are turning to lobbyists, interest groups and private sector resources for help, allowing these groups to exert a unique influence in the halls of Congress.  Most Members of Congress would probably agree that relying on outside experts for legislative guidance is not always ideal. 

Fortunately, there is an option to provide fair, accurate and unbiased data to Congress when staffers don't have the bandwidth or expertise. Quorum Analytics provides the world’s most comprehensive database of legislative information on an intuitive, web-based platform, allowing easy access to bills, votes, Tweets, Facebook posts, press releases, floor statements, hearing schedules and transcripts, committee reports, Dear Colleague letters, CRS reports and much more. Bill text comparison allows Congressional staff to effortlessly highlight additions, subtractions, and modifications to every bill so they never miss a thing as the bill makes its way to the floor.  Integrated Legislative outreach allows staffers to easily help the Member prepare for meetings and update colleagues, making it easier to find and share what’s most important.  Quantitative legislative targeting provides actionable insights to help you identify active Members, affected constituents and key relationships, providing you with key demographic data to allow you to make more informed legislative decisions.  With those available features and the fully functional mobile app, it’s never been easier to provide the best possible and most informed service for your constituents.

Leidos is pleased to be the exclusive reseller of Quorum Analytics on Capitol Hill and we'd love to provide a short demo to show you how Quorum Analytics can be your legislative team's best friend.  Contact us today with any questions or to schedule a demo.

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