From Behind the Ball to the Leading Edge
When Nevada Assemblyman Toby Yurek’s office first adopted Quorum, Legislative Attaché Cindy Paiva had no idea the innovative advantage this gave to them. “I thought we were behind the ball,” she says. “And then I looked around and realized — oh, we’re on the leading edge, and a lot of people are still doing Excel spreadsheets. We’ve made leaps and bounds.”
Fast forward several years and the entire Nevada Legislature — all 62 legislators and their staff across both chambers and parties — runs on Quorum.
All state legislators can resonate with the challenges Nevada once faced. Legislators who used to spend several hours on nightly bill prep now finish in a fraction of the time. Collaboration, once fragmented and difficult, is now built into how the caucus operates. AI-powered summaries don’t just break down what’s in a bill; they help legislators anticipate how both sides of the aisle are likely to interpret it. And the institutional knowledge that used to disappear at the end of every session? It’s preserved, searchable, and ready for whoever comes next. Leveraging these new technological advances to create a legislative strategy created an environment for more effective governance and potential for bipartisan collaboration.
This is how they got there.
Challenge: Part-Time Legislators Drowning in Disconnected Systems
Nevada operates a part-time citizen legislature that convenes for just four months every two years. During that compressed window, legislators must review, deliberate, and vote on thousands of bills — while simultaneously managing committee hearings, stakeholder meetings, caucus strategy, and floor sessions. The pace is relentless, and the stakes are high.
When Assemblyman Toby Yurek arrived for his first term in 2023, the tools available to legislators had not kept pace with the demands of the job. The caucus relied on an internally developed system over 20 years old. It was installed only on legislative-issued laptops, offered a cramped user interface, and lacked any mobile access.
“I found that particular software to be unusable my first term. To go into that world and see an antiquated system, it was quite frustrating.” — Toby Yurek, Former Nevada State Assemblyman
The result was a fragmented, labor-intensive workflow. Paiva described a typical day: gathering bill information from NELIS (the state’s public bill-tracking system), copying notes from Outlook calendar appointments, scanning paper handouts from lobbyists, and manually transferring all of it into a custom template. That process consumed the majority of her 12- to 14-hour workdays.
Without a centralized collaboration platform, Yurek felt isolated even within his own caucus. Cross-chamber communication was minimal, and there was no shared,real-time record of stakeholder positions, colleague notes, or bill histories.
“I looked at those systems and immediately thought, ‘There has to be a better system. This cannot be what we’re doing in the 2020s.'” — Cindy Paiva, Legislative Attaché
The burden extended well beyond work hours. Yurek typically arrived home around 10 p.m., then spent three or more hours reading and preparing for the next day’s committee hearings. With multiple bills to review per day, the nightly workload was unsustainable.
Solution: A Modern, Centralized Platform for Legislative Collaboration
Following his first term, Yurek assumed a leadership position within his Caucus and tasked Paiva with finding a better solution. She researched over a dozen vendors and ultimately narrowed it down to three finalists. The requirements were clear: cloud-based, industry-leading security, customizable with fields for deeper insights and better data hygiene, accessible on any device, and intuitive enough for legislators with varying levels of technical ability.
“Quorum had all of those pieces. Cloud-based, SOC compliant, custom fields, admin control — we hit the jackpot.” — Cindy Paiva, Legislative Attaché
What began as a plan for just Yurek and Paiva quickly expanded. After demonstrating Quorum to leadership across the Assembly and Senate, both houses committed. When the majority party learned what the minority was using, they requested access as well. Ultimately, all members had access to Quorum ahead of the 2025 Legislative Session.
Key capabilities Nevada Legislators can use in Quorum:
- Bill Tracking & Notes: Legislators can track positions, meeting notes, stakeholder stances, and follow-up items on every bill in one shared record — replacing scattered NELIS templates, Outlook notes, and paper files.
- Caucus & Leadership Collaboration: Assembly and Senate members share real-time notes and concerns on legislation with their colleagues as it moves between chambers, enabling coordinated strategy.
- Document Compare: Side-by-side amendment comparison replaced a manual process of converting documents to Word and running compare — a feature Paiva called “instrumental for the whole caucus.”
- AI-Powered Bill Summaries: Legislators use Quorum’s built-in AI to quickly summarize bills, anticipate how both sides of the aisle might interpret key provisions, and generate suggested questions for committee hearings — all within a closed, secure system.
- Custom Fields & Dashboards: The team configured issue management widgets for stakeholder positions and built visual dashboards that give leadership an at-a-glance view of real-time legislative activity.
- On-the-Go Access: Whether through the browser or mobile app, legislators access critical bill information and notes wherever they are so key context is always a tap away, not waiting back at a desk.
Soon, these workflows became a standard part of a newly developed Caucus strategy. Where once they felt behind, each legislator now had access to a powerful and innovative tool to gather insights and govern effectively.
“By the end, even folks that frustrated and didn’t know what to do knew exactly where to go. It’s a very user-friendly interface.” — Toby Yurek, Former Nevada State Assemblyman
AI as a Force Multiplier
Quorum’s built-in AI assistant, Quincy, transformed how the team prepared for and navigated Session. But Quincy goes well beyond summarizing what’s in a bill. By harnessing personalized AI analysis, the team can research similar bills across all 50 states, identify common legislative trends, and understand what might work in Nevada. Members could anticipate how both sides of the aisle might interpret key provisions — flagging language likely to draw partisan opposition, identifying politically sensitive clauses, and surfacing the arguments most likely to arise in committee. And for the first time, even in a partisan environment, the caucus had a platform that could support real collaboration and finding common ground — across both houses and the executive branch.
For Paiva, Quincy also eliminated hours of manual research. A process that previously required navigating to NELIS, downloading hearing recordings from YouTube, waiting for transcripts, and using third-party tools to find relevant testimony could now be completed inside Quorum in minutes.
“I went from three-plus hours of preparation at night to thirty to sixty minutes. It drastically cut my workload, and I felt honestly that I was even more prepared than I was firstsession.”— Toby Yurek, Former Nevada State Assemblyman
“That saves at least two hours of time. I used to have to go to NELIS, download transcripts, use third-party software. On Quincy, I got exact results.” — Cindy Paiva, Legislative Attaché
Yurek emphasized that they use AI as a research assistant and editor — never as an author — and valued the fact that Quincy operates in a closed system, keeping confidential legislative communications off open AI platforms.
Impact: From Isolation to Institutional Knowledge
Building Quorum into member, Leadership & caucus workflows fundamentally changed operations. The minority party went from having no effective platform for collaboration to deploying a formal legislative strategy that relied on real-time bill tracking, stakeholder documentation, and shared position notes.
For individual legislators, the impact was immediate. On-the-go access meant notes could be captured between meetings instead of reconstructed hours later. Visual dashboards gave leaders an at-a-glance understanding of where bills stood and which issues needed attention. Personalized AI-bill summaries reduced after-hours workloads by 75% or more.
For the institution, the value extends beyond any single session. Legislative history is now preserved in the system and available for future legislators to gather insights and compare across Sessions. That institutional memory is something Nevada never had with their old system or paper files.
Yurek also described being able to receive real-time warnings from Senate colleagues when a bill was passed with promises of future amendments, then following up to verify those changes were made. Cross-chamber accountability at that level is simply not possible without an integrated solution.
“Quorum just makes sense on so many different levels. If you want collaboration in your legislature, in your caucus, in your policy — Quorum just makes sense. Why chase data all over the place? You don’t need to.” — Cindy Paiva, Legislative Attaché
Looking Ahead: A Recommendation for Every State Legislature
Yurek, now a high-level policy advisor, continues to use Quorum and actively encourages its adoption. When asked what he would tell an elected official from another state considering Quorum, his answer was direct.
“I would encourage any legislature or legislator that is interested in figuring out how you can navigate 1,200-plus bills in a compressed time period to look at Quorum. Its accessibility, its user interface, real-time relevant information at your fingertips — it’s a tremendous asset and a huge time saver.” — Toby Yurek, Former Nevada State Assemblyman
Paiva offered practical guidance for other legislators considering implementation: designate a champion who is excited about technology and has good systems instincts, allow at least a three- to six-month ramp-up period before session, and focus initial training on the three most essential skills—recording interactions, comparing amendments, and using AI to ask questions about bills.
“Each legislator needs a one-stop shop to find their information. There’s enough they have to deal with—political relationships, lobbyists, stakeholders. Why chase data all over the place? You don’t need to.” — Cindy Paiva, Legislative Attaché