Startup helps clients navigate maze of congressional process
Offspring of two NM politicos create Quorum as strategy platform
The sons of two highprofile current and former New Mexico politicos have launched a business startup that aims to help clients navigate the byzantine congressional legislative process and learn more about members’ public-policy priorities.
Alex Wirth, son of Democratic state Sen. Peter Wirth, and Joshua Hone, son of former Republican U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, say Quorum is “an online legislative strategy platform that offers unique quantitative insights into the U.S. Congress,” according to a company press release.
Quorum will feature interactive visuals and statistics for each member of Congress, legislative bill, vote, committee, issue and congressional district.
The firm has already lined up some major early support, including prominent D.C.based lobbying and law firm Holland & Knight, and The Glover Park Group, an influential lobbying and communications shop founded by former Clinton White House spokesman Joe Lockhart. The United Nations Foundation’s Better World Campaign, The First Focus Campaign for Children and The Navajo Nation are also early clients.
Quorum is charging $4,800 a year for a single-user login subscription that can be shared among everyone at a particular organization.
Wirth, the company’s co-founder, is a Santa Fe native and graduate of Santa Fe Prep. He is a senior at Harvard University studying government and economics. Jonathan Marks, a classmate of Wirth’s at Harvard, is the company’s co-founder.
Hone attended La Cueva High School in Albuquerque before graduating from the Early College Academy. Hone, the company’s director of business development, is a sophomore at George Washington University in Washington. Wirth and Hone are both 21.
The company says the platform’s algorithms process over 800 million data points collected from bills, votes, amendments, floor statements, press releases, tweets and Census Bureau statistics “to give users access to quantitative member and issue profiles, interactive demographic data, and state-of-the-art productivity tools.” The site also will offer statistics on the top issues that each member sponsors, co-sponsors or makes amendments to, as well as information on the members with whom they co-sponsor, vote with, tweet at or mention most frequently.
“We’re excited to be able not only to aggregate data from a wide variety of congressional sources, but also to organize, analyze and present it in a way that’s never been done before,” Marks said.