How Lobbyists Use MassTrac to Stay Ahead of Beacon Hill
Lobbying in Massachusetts means staying ahead of a legislative process that moves fast, changes often, and can shift direction with a single amendment. Without the right tools, even the most experienced advocates find themselves buried in PDFs, outdated committee notices, and frantic refreshes of the State House website.
For many lobbyists, the problem is not lack of expertise. It's a lack of visibility.
The Daily Struggles Lobbyists Face Without MassTrac
You’re digging through old bill text and scattered amendments just to confirm what version is actually on the floor.
Your email is full of client questions about “what happened yesterday” but you’re still piecing together actions from multiple sources.
You’re re-creating the same spreadsheet over and over to track dozens of bills, each at different stages, each moving without warning.
Hearings appear with little notice, and unless you check every committee page manually, you risk missing something time-sensitive.
A last-minute amendment drops at 11:30 p.m., but you don’t learn about it until the next morning, long after your client’s issue is already in play.
You have multiple clients with conflicting interests, all demanding reports.
No clear, consolidated view of everything happening across the committees, bills, hearings, and amendments that affect their clients.
Traditional methods like spreadsheets, web-scraping, or generic tracking tools not built for Massachusetts leave you constantly playing catch-up. MassTrac was built specifically to solve these Massachusetts legislative tracking challenges.
Why Lobbyists Choose MassTrac
Lobbyists don’t need more than alerts cluttering their inboxes – they need alerts that give the full picture at just a glance. MassTrac gives you a single system where bills, amendments, hearings, actions, transcripts, news, and your own strategy notes come together in one place, updated synchronously with Beacon Hill.
Here’s how top lobbyists use MassTrac to work faster, stay compliant, and deliver more value to their clients.
Bill Tracking Capabilities
Massachusetts files more bills per capita than almost any other state, so it’s a no-brainer all key stakeholders on Beacon Hill rely on MassTrac to transform chaos into clarity.
From filing to final enactment, you can follow every action on every bill you track in real time, see the entire history of a bill, set positions for each bill you’re tracking, and generate professional reports for clients.
MassTrac provides lobbyists with 5 different ways to search for a bill to track:
Smart Search: AI-powered search engine using semantic learning rather than basic keywords.
Statutory Citations: Find bills based on the references to the Massachusetts General Laws and Session Laws contained within them.
Bill Category: Search for bills by subject matter, either broadly (such as “Education”), or very specifically (such as “Education - Bilingual Education”).
Keywords: Type a keyword or phrase in quotes or a bill number if you know it. Our search is supported by flexible filtering facets.
Advanced Search: Go beyond a simple keyword query by applying additional controls to refine results.
Organized Tracking for Complex Portfolios
MassTrac offers unlimited users and unlimited tracks. Unlike competitors who charge per seat, we allow you to add as many colleagues as needed with no extra fees.
Create tracking lists (aka folders) for each client, issue area, or project. Bills automatically update when new versions are filed, and docket numbers convert to bill numbers seamlessly.
Open tracks are available for firm-wide visibility or private tracks for individual client confidentiality - perfect for lobbying firms managing multiple clients with competing interests.
See Exact Changes Between Bill Versions with Smart Compare
Legal language moves fast, and lobbyists often spend hours trying to spot differences across versions of bills. MassTrac’s Smart Compare shows every addition and deletion across bill versions.
When amendments start flying, you can tell your clients exactly what changed, how big the change is, and whether it impacts them.
This makes you the first person in the room with answers, not the last person trying to decode a PDF with a highlighter.
Smart Alerts That Save Hours
Lobbyists often track policy by topic, not bill number, which is why MassTrac created the Daily Alert, our most popular feature. Every morning before you start work, you receive a comprehensive email showing exactly what happened to your tracked bills, amendments, legislators, keywords, and committees.
The Daily Alert Includes:
Actions on tracked bills and amendments
New bills matching your keywords, citations, and categories
Big bill and budget reports
New bill text and amendments
Scheduled House, Senate sessions, as well as committee hearings
News and press releases on your tracked legislation, legislators, and committees.
You don’t need to watch everything because MassTrac watches it for you.
Compliance Made Simple
Lobbyists know that compliance is not optional, and reporting deadlines never arrive at a convenient time.
MassTrac helps streamline the process by giving you a space to document your positions on bills, as well as add comments that are shared only with colleagues.
Transcripts From Every State House Event
MassTrac gives you instant access to searchable transcripts of committee hearings, floor debates, regulatory hearings, and special commissions. With our first-in-the-nation State House transcript service, lobbyists no longer need to rely on hearsay or hallway summaries.
If anything related to your client is discussed at a hearing or meeting, you’ll be notified via email.
Professional Reports in Seconds
Generate customized reports instantly from anywhere in the platform:
Bill tracking reports with any data fields you choose
Committee reports showing all legislation in a committee
Legislative scorecards showing how legislators voted
Comprehensive bill comparisons with Smart Compare
Reports are downloadable as Word documents or CSV files and include your logo, so you can share directly to clients.
Stay Ahead of Beacon Hill with MassTrac
Whether you’re a solo practitioner or part of a large Government Affairs team, MassTrac helps transform your workflow from reactive to strategic.
If you’re ready to stay ahead, not just keep up, we’d love to show you how the platform can work for you.
Book a demo with our team and see why Massachusetts’ top lobbyists rely on MassTrac every day.