What is cicada.guide?

Your state legislature passes laws that affect your schools, your roads, your taxes and your rights. Almost all of it happens in language most people never have time to read.

cicada.guide takes state legislation and turns it into something you can actually follow: plain-English summaries, a clear view of how your own representatives voted, and help writing to them when something matters to you.

What you can do here

• Read bills in plain English. Every bill has a summary, and you can ask follow-up questions about the actual bill text.

• Follow the subjects you care about. Housing, education, healthcare — pick your topics and your feed fills in around them.

• See how your representatives voted. Enter your address once and we'll show you who represents you and how they voted on each bill.

• Track bills. Star a bill and get an email when its status changes.

• Contact your representatives. We'll draft the message; you review it and decide whether to send it.

We don't take sides

cicada.guide is non-partisan. We don't tell you what to think about a bill or which way to vote. We show you what the bill says, what stage it's at, and what your representatives did with it. What you do with that is up to you.

About the name

Cicadas spend years underground and then emerge all at once. Democracy works a bit the same way — long quiet stretches, then moments where showing up matters enormously. The goal is to make it easier to notice those moments.

Where to start

Create an account, add your address so we can find your representatives, and pick a few subjects. That's enough to get a useful feed on day one.