Contract Trail
A plain-English watchdog that monitors state legislative contracts, flags when a lawmaker signs deals with associates or former business partners, and alerts newsrooms when contracts are split to dodge review thresholds.
investigative reporters and civic accountability organizations covering state legislatures
- State contract monitor with daily alerts on new legislator-signed deals
- Conflict graph: cross-references vendor connections (former associates, family, prior employers)
- Split-pattern detector that flags when amounts are split to stay below statutory review thresholds
- Plain-English case files journalists can hand-edit before publishing
The Montana Ellsworth guilty verdict is the highest-profile recent example of a state senator convicted for splitting a $170k contract into two sub-$100k pieces to avoid review — exactly the pattern a state-level contract watchdog would have surfaced.
Ellsworth verdict was covered by multiple outlets (Yahoo, MTPR, Bozeman Daily Chronicle, KTVH) showing real newsroom appetite for this story pattern; adjacent tools like FollowTheMoney and LegisTrack serve this exact user base, confirming demand.Jury finds Ellsworth guilty of official misconduct ↗Home - FollowTheMoney.org ↗
No direct competitor found that specifically alerts on state legislative contract-splitting patterns; adjacent players (FollowTheMoney, PolitiData Canadian-only, LegisTrack bill-tracking) don't cover state procurement splitting.LegisTrack — Track State Legislation Across All 50 States ↗Canadian Lobbying & Political Money Data for Journalists | PolitiData ↗
Newsroom investigative budgets have shrunk sharply and free public records (NCSL ethics database) substitute partially; even paid tools like LegisTrack likely struggle in a niche of statehouse reporters — willingness to pay is real but small per-account.Database Ethics Legislation Database - National Conference of State Legislatures ↗LegisTrack — Track State Legislation Across All 50 States ↗
State legislative corruption and self-dealing are perennial concerns and conflicts-of-interest in procurement are an enduring regulatory focus (Treasury Board guides, NCSL ethics tracking).Homepage | Project On Government Oversight ↗
Requires scraping/normalizing 50 disparate state procurement portals (many lack APIs), linking lawmakers to associated entities, and defining split-pattern heuristics — significant data-engineering effort before any alert is useful.Database Ethics Legislation Database - National Conference of State Legislatures ↗