Cicero Supercharges Congressional & State Legislative Data for Melissa Users

Written by Melissa Team | Nov 26, 2024 4:00:00 PM

Intro

Over the past 20 years, the Cicero team has been building “democracy’s database,” the most accurate set of elected officials and legislative districts data in the world. Melissa identified a Cicero partnership as a way to create a strategic advantage in the ability to provide better data. In early 2024, Melissa acquired Cicero to give our users access to superior national and state legislative data.

Products/Features

Melissa users currently receive information about congressional districts, state senate and state house districts in our address and geo products. This includes our on-premise Address and Geocoder Objects as well as the Personator Web Service (for US and Canada users) and Global Address Web Service (all countries supported).

Without any changes needed, all Melissa users will automatically receive the new Cicero data going forward and can take advantage of the benefits that it brings.

Benefits

The industry standard for congressional districts is to use the data provided by the USPS. While this was very convenient for us, the reasons for making the switch to Cicero include:

USPS Congressional Data	Cicero Congressional Data
Updated on USPS time schedule. This can be erratic and unpredictable.	Updated as soon as the data is available from legislatures and released to coincide with when the new districts take effect.
Data is specific to a Zip+4 record (covers around 10-20 homes each).	Data is specific down to each individual address.
Errors are not easily identified and corrected.	All data is collected, vetted and compiled in house with rigorous quality checks and the ability for immediate corrections.
No promises of updates for out of cycle changes.	Monitors for redrawn districts due to litigation and ad-hoc redistricting.

Here is an example of the difference between Zip+4 level data and address level data:

The same situation applies to state legislative data (state senates and houses), which is usually sourced from the Census TIGER data. By using Cicero, we now have the most accurate and most up to date data.

Timeline

In the weeks and months following the US national and state elections on November 5^th, there will be thousands of legislators starting new terms. The Cicero team has begun tracking down the new information immediately after election day.

With the legislative session starting in January 2025, Melissa has begun rolling out the new data so our users will have access to this new information as soon as it is available.

More to Offer

With Cicero comes an extraordinary focus on all things related to legislative data. Teams monitor for changes to officeholder data and legislative districts during and between elections and redistricting cycles. Changes are made to the data every single day. Here are some more data that may be of interest to Melissa users:

Officials' Profile Data: Beyond the standard name and contact information, we also track data on websites, photos, biography and social media handles.
Committee Assignments: Includes subcommittee assignments as well as leadership titles, maintained at a national and state level.
Mapping/Geospatial Data: Boundary data for national, state and local level districts.
Local and International: Access to legislative data for over 450 cities in counties in the US and Canada. Additionally, data extending into the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.

If you're interested in more information on Cicero, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at www.melissa.com or 1-800-MELISSA. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog for everything related to data quality!

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