Project Civitas

Civic empowerment platform for referencing Supreme Court rulings and enacted legislation to support political strategy, checks on power, and legislative drafting.

Vision

Democratize access to legal and legislative intelligence - giving campaigns and citizens the same analytical capabilities that well-funded lobbying firms have.

Core Purposes

• Prevent abuse - Reference precedents to identify and challenge governmental overreach
• Check power - Understand the legal landscape for accountability
• Draft legislation - Learn from laws that survived judicial review
• Inform strategy - Support electoral, advocacy, and litigation efforts

Data Sources

Supreme Court

Source	Description	Status
Library of Congress - US Reports	Official bound volumes of Supreme Court decisions	Planned
supremecourt.gov Slip Opinions	Recent decisions (2018-present)	Planned
US Reports Archive	Historical bound volumes	Planned

Congress

Source	Description	Status
Congress.gov API	Official API for bills, laws, votes, members	Planned
Enacted Legislation	Public laws	Planned

Roadmap

Phase 1: Data Ingestion

• Congress.gov API integration
• Supreme Court opinion scraper
• Citation parser (link cases <-> laws)
• Local database storage

Phase 2: Search & Reference

• Full-text search across cases and laws
• Citation lookup
• Topic/keyword filtering
• CLI interface

Phase 3: Analysis Layer

• Pattern detection (what makes laws survive challenges)
• Network analysis (sponsor coalitions, citing patterns)
• Timeline/trend visualization

Phase 4: AI-Powered Features

• Natural language queries
• Draft assistance from precedents
• Legal risk assessment

Development Approach

Current Phase: Private development with Bay Tides as test user for conservation advocacy use cases.

Future: Broader public release for campaigns and citizens.

Project Structure

civitas/
├── src/
│   └── civitas/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       ├── congress/       # Congress.gov API integration
│       ├── scotus/         # Supreme Court data ingestion
│       ├── db/             # Database models and storage
│       ├── search/         # Search functionality
│       └── analysis/       # Analysis tools
├── tests/
├── data/                   # Local data storage (gitignored)
├── docs/                   # Documentation
└── scripts/                # Utility scripts

Development

Backend

• Create/activate the Python venv and install deps as needed.
• Run tests:

./venv/bin/python -m pytest -q

Web App

cd web
npm ci
npm run dev

Deployment (Cloudflare Pages)

This project deploys the Next.js app to Cloudflare Pages via GitHub Actions:

• Workflow: .github/workflows/deploy.yml
• Build: npm run build in web/
• Cache cleanup: .next/cache removed before deploy to avoid the 25 MiB file limit
• Deploy command: wrangler pages deploy web/.next --project-name=civitas

Required secrets/vars:

• CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN
• CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID
• NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL

Accessibility

Target: WCAG 2.2 AA.

Implemented practices include:

• Skip link to main content
• Programmatic labels for form inputs
• Button groups with aria-pressed state
• Decorative icons marked aria-hidden
• Reduced motion support for animated UI elements

Recommended checks:

• Keyboard-only navigation and focus visibility
• Screen reader smoke test (NVDA/VoiceOver)
• Color contrast review on badge/status colors

License

TBD

Contributing

Currently in private development. Contribution guidelines will be added for public release.