— Policy Research & Tools for the Public Good
A dignified life depends on a government that serves you.
We build the policy & research that makes the case for working people — and the civic tools that let anyone follow the money, find their representatives, and hold power to account.
Cited By
Chicago City Council | Crain’s Chicago Business | WBEZ | Chicago Tribune | Southside Weekly
The Chicago SMART Tax: Making Big Tech Pay It’s Share
A first-of-it’s-kind levy that asks platforms profiting off of Chicagoans to pay $0.50 per user per month – funding mental health crisis response and the expansion of universally accessible public mental health centers.
Latest Research
Progressive Delivery Fees: What They Could Look Like In Chicago
Comparative analysis of delivery fee structures across the country, with a proposed view of what a progressive option in Chicago could look like.
Electricity Use Tax: A Case For Industrial Energy Users to Pay Their Fair Share
Individuals and small businesses pay less per KwH of energy than industrial users. We have an opportunity to shift the burden of high useage from families and small businesses to data centers and large users.
Local Government Distributive Fund: Bringing Municipalities back to Funding Parity
Since 1969, municipalities across the state have gotten 10% of the income taxes sent to the state. Since 2011, that number dropped, and has had municipalities struggling to maintain local services. Learn what’s at stake, and how that could change.
— Civic Tools
Put the receipts in your own hands.
Our research runs on public records — and so do these. Free tools that let anyone check the work for themselves: see who funds your officials, how they vote, and how to reach them directly.
Publicly Financed Elections + Rank Choice Voting Simulator
Simulate what Chicago Elections could look like if we had Democratic tools like Rank Choice Voting – which removes the need for a runoff, and allows constituents to rank who they would want in office rather than a binary choice, and Publicly Financed Elections – that increase the value of small dollar donors, to make sure our electeds are representing us versus big money.
Alder Voting History + Funding Transparency Tool
A live view of how alders have voted across divided votes in City Council, as well as a clean view of who has funded each of the 50 sitting alders.
Campaign Finance Transparency Tool
A direct feed analysis of who is funding the different Chicago-related elections: who are the biggest spenders on the elections, what else do they fund, what percent of spend comes from individual donations versus PACs, and how much are Independent Expenditures spending for and against different candidates.