To Get Better Legislation, Start With Reliable Data

To Get Better Legislation, Start With Reliable Data

A look at the tools states use to bring evidence into the legislative process.

Data centers are among the topics covered in West Virginia's Science and Technology Notes, one-page explainers of scientific topics that focus on the question, "What do you need to know to have a discussion about this?" (halbergman/Getty Images)

Whether you're building a birdhouse or voting on a bill, the proper tools are essential to getting the job done.

To that end, states have created information-based tools to help legislatures tackle difficult questions and understand what's working (and what's not) in state programs and policies.

"We've been really trying to incorporate evidence into our advisement of the Legislature," Jon Courtney, deputy director of the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee, told a session at the 2025 NCSL Legislative Summit in Boston. "We care about outcomes: What are we getting out of these investments that we're making?"

States have developed a range of tools, including fiscal notes, data hubs, performance measures and evidence scales, to bring reliable, nonpartisan information into the legislative process.

A Variety Tools

Fiscal notes are among the most familiar of the tools that state legislatures have at their disposal to understand the impact legislation will have on the state's bottom line. "For bills with a fiscal impact, fiscal notes are the front-line information that legislators have," says Erica MacKellar, program principal with NCSL's Fiscal Program. "They're usually considered the price tag of legislation, so they're often very unpopular."

Legislators' feelings about them aside, fiscal notes can provide critical information about a bill. "Fiscal notes really help legislators and legislative staff see where individual pieces of legislation can fit into that overall budgeting picture," MacKellar says.

Though fiscal notes are produced in nearly every state, the numbers vary widely. "You have states that produce just a handful each session, and then you have states like Texas that can produce over 9,000 within a session," MacKellar says. Although legislative staff develop fiscal notes with short turnaround times, they strive to make them useful to legislators.

"Those nonpartisan staff work really hard to make sure that they're providing the best nonbiased information that they can," she says. "And I know how valuable it is to them to make sure that their members trust the information that they're getting."

In addition to fiscal notes, states have developed other effective ways to supply information for the legislative process. Courtney says the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee's work has evolved over time to address problems at a deeper level. "We've been developing more and more tools and approaches growing out of performance-based budgeting."

One recent innovation grew out of challenges experienced by lawmakers in hearings with state agencies. "Our legislators came to us and said, 'We can't keep having these hundred-slide presentations from agencies. It was almost like a filibustering of their hearing time," Courtney says. "And so, our legislators asked us, 'How can we have more meaningful hearings?'"

To address the issue, the committee developed the "It's an ongoing conversation with an agency that's focused on challenges, on issues that we need to try to address," Courtney says. "We're focusing on data conversations where the goal is to increase accountability, make specific action plans and look at outcomes over time."

In addition to LegisStat hearings, the committee also helps to produce quarterly agency report cards that legislators can use to understand program performance on critical measures. In some cases, performance issues identified in report cards can lead to more in-depth program evaluations conducted by committee staff.

"There are a number of program evaluations that are kicked off because we're looking at performance measures and saying, 'Gosh, we're not where we want to be,' or 'We're paying a lot and it doesn't seem like the work is getting done,'" Courtney says.

Science Notes

With increasing demands on legislatures to tackle complex and technical problems, more states are looking to bring scientific expertise into the conversation. The nonpartisan West Virginia Science and Technology Policy Initiative, known as WV STeP, brings science to the Statehouse through Science and Technology Notes. These one-page explainers of scientific topics produced by doctoral-level fellows focus on the question, "What do you need to know to have a discussion about this?" says Kensey Bergdorf-Smith, the initiative's executive director. Topics covered in the notes include data centers, school lunch programs, chemical recycling, DNA use in law enforcement and more. The notes provide a quick set of facts and a comparison to nearby states.

The goal, Bergdorf-Smith says, is to boil down academic concepts to something digestible for legislators. "West Virginia has a part-time citizen Legislature. They are contractors and plumbers and bus drivers and teachers, but also lawyers and doctors. And we want to make sure that the policy discussions that are happening are starting on a level playing field."

Though WV STeP and programs like it can provide a wealth of information to legislators, Bergdorf-Smith cautions that it's important to be up front about limitations and clear about the issues for which objective data can and cannot be provided.

"We're making sure that the questions are framed in a way that both protects our organization and ensures that we are just purveying the data," she says. "We don't leave room for bias to come in from the jump."

Carrington Skinner is a program principal NCSL's Center for Results-Driven Governing.