Tracking 10,000 bills with a two-person team isn’t just possible — it’s being done. The City of Garland, Texas is proving that municipal government relations can be both strategic and scalable with the right tools and processes in place. At a recent Quorum webinar, Ariel Traub, Managing Director of Legislative and Public Affairs for Garland, shared how her team has reimagined legislative tracking, engagement, and reporting — using Quorum to lead the way.
This post unpacks Ariel’s approach and offers guidance for local government teams looking to modernize their public affairs operations.
The Challenge: Volume Without Visibility
Texas’ legislature meets every other year for 140 days, and in that time lawmakers file over 10,000 bills. For a city like Garland, identifying which bills matter and why is mission-critical.
Ariel’s team prioritizes legislation based on:
- Authorship: The bill’s sponsor often signals influence and likelihood of movement.
- Impact: Direct operational or fiscal consequences for Garland’s departments.
Each bill is categorized as:
- Support
- Oppose
- Watch
As of the most recent legislative session, the team was actively tracking nearly 1,700 bills. With limited resources and rapidly shifting priorities, managing this volume without missing critical developments posed a constant challenge.
The Solution: Centralization and Automation with Quorum
Garland has built a process around Quorum’s functionality, replacing fragmented workflows with centralized, real-time collaboration. Here’s how:
🔄 Daily Legislative Scrapes
Every evening at 8 PM, Ariel’s team pulls the day’s bill filings from the Texas Legislature and cross-checks them against Quorum’s internal tracking. This double-verification ensures accuracy.
📊 Visual Oversight Through Dashboards and Sheets
Using Quorum Sheets, Ariel assigns bills to directors and managing directors. Each stakeholder receives an auto-updating report showing what’s been reviewed, flagged, or needs input. Dashboards visualize:
- Bill volume by issue area
- Support/oppose/watch status
- Interaction counts with legislators
- Time spent by department and policy area