(Albuquerque) The Rio Grande Foundation has launched a new online tool for New Mexicans wanting to better follow how legislation moves through their Legislature. This site, called “New Mexico Votes” which can be found online at www.newmexicovotes.org will be available and free to the public for the first time during the Legislature’s upcoming special session.

The site will provide bill information in plain English and includes a whole host of features that those who want to track what happens in Santa Fe will find useful. The results of floor votes will be listed in near real-time and will allow users to put information in a more usable format than does the Legislature’s website.

Lastly, users of the site will be able to interact with each other, commenting on legislation as it moves during the session.

Paul Gessing, President of the Rio Grande Foundation, said of the new public service, “New Mexico Votes is part of our organization’s new project to make New Mexico government more transparent. We want anyone who wants to know what their legislator is doing to be able to sign on and read plain English descriptions of what each bill does in a way that the average person can understand, and know immediately what their tax money is being spent on, or whether the bill increases or decreases taxation, regulation, or government transparency,”

Information from the already-complete 2008 regular legislative session is currently available on the New Mexico Votes website. Votes and bills introduced during the special session and subsequent legislative sessions will be added to the New Mexico Votes site in order to allow citizens to track issues and the votes taken by their elected officials over the years.

The Foundation has ambitious plans for the site, planning to add in stages all the information not currently available on the state legislature web site. “We want this site to become an invaluable tool for candidates, the media, and – perhaps most importantly – the everyday New Mexico citizen,” Gessing says.