Clause Out is a technology company on a mission to make policymaking accessible, enjoyable, and fashionable. We're building tools to help you learn about and put your stamp on policy debates.
You’ve come to the right place! At Clause Out, we believe in doing the same thing with our internal policies as we do with the issues of the day. That means keeping everything clear, organized, and interactive. We want you to understand what we're doing and why, so you can have a real say.
If you have any suggestions for us - whether a bug in the product or feedback about your experience - click the buttons below to get in touch. We'll do our best to listen and improve.
Clause Out democratizes policymaking.
Our website (which can be downloaded as an app) allows ordinary citizens to voice their opinions and connect on a range of substantive pieces of legislation. We're putting the laws in your claws!
Think of Clause Out as a delivery service, giving you access to the inner workings of democracy—served straight. Nonpartisan. Independent. Just the facts. That's our approach.
Our focus is on helping you explore the issues that matter. All based on actual legislation that is up for debate. Your input will help advance the proposed policies that really matter to the people. Or take clauses out of legislation that are planted there by special interests...
Thousands of policies don't even make it to a vote. We're changing that on our platform.
Our process has three steps for getting your voice counted:
10 featured policies that are tailored just for you! The Agenda includes proposals that:
Your agenda includes proposals that:
Every week we add issues (real legislation) that may or may not make the headlines.
If we missed something you're passionate about, let us know here:
Many policymakers actually do care about your stance on the issues. They want to do the right thing. They just don't have reliable, timely access to public opinion. At least not on specific policies.
Even though your votes on the platform don't have any official clout in Congress, we're delivering them to your elected representatives. We package your viewpoints so they're taken into account.
We share detailed poll results with interest groups and policymakers. Always fully anonymized
After a policy card's timer runs out, we collect your votes, compile them, and let policymakers consider them. The policy card will still be viewable after the poll ends. Just go to the Library page.
We get it—social media comment sections are infamous for toxic political discussions. Some of these topics will ignite passionate people to fight their opponents, and that quickly spirals into endless arguments that lead nowhere.
We're trying something different.
At Clause Out, comments are a limited resource. You only get one per policy card, so make it count. Your comment will show up under the tab for the side you voted for. There you can discuss with people you agree with, and elevate the best argument to vote in your favor. We encourage users to explore the arguments made by the other side, and try to see things from another perspective. There might be a compelling argument that will convince you to change your mind.
Representation matters. Both in principle and because it creates more accurate polling.
Therefore, we want to ensure that the votes we collect give an accurate picture of the American people. This is why we ask our community members to share their personal information with us. We only share aggregated non-identifying demographic data.
We collect demographic information from our users with explicit consent. While not all users provide complete data, we leverage any available information to improve the accuracy of our results.
Of course the way a person identifies or responds to these demographic questions does not determine their political views and opinions. However, there are clear correlations between certain issues and specific demographic traits. When considering only a single demographic variable, this might be insignificant. But by using many different variables it is possible to create a highly accurate public sentiment report from a large enough sample.
We take privacy very seriously, and so only the following information is visible for other users:
Other than that, users have complete control over how much personal info appears on their profile. We don't control how many details users choose to include when arguing their case in the debate section.
As for poll results, we only share aggregated non-identifying demographic data with our partners. We will never disclose your personal information or data.
Perhaps the most important question—what’s with the raccoon?
Meet Razzle, your handy guide to the policy landscape!
In his free time, Razzle digs up policies for fun. All he wants is for you to explore with him. He just can’t help but scrape around for problems to be solved.
Our job is to make the laws make sense. That way you can play an active role in our democracy.
Razzle is our mascot because he embodies our values of being accurate, caring, curious, and spunky.