Owner of biz weeklies creates national state legislative reporting service

Dolan Co., which owns weekly business newspapers across the country, announced Tuesday that it has created a legislative reporting and data service in conjunction with Telran Inc.

The new service, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is called Legislative Information Service of America. It will provide Web-based reporting on floor and committee actions, bill filings, and other legislative activity. It features customized real-time tracking, alerts, full-text searches, daily calendars and critical analytical tools aimed at bills as they are filed and debated in statehouses across the United States.

The service will provide national coverage with a speed and depth unmatched by any existing legislative service. After an extended period of development and testing, Legislative Information began customer demonstrations Nov. 1. Operational components will be rolled out during November, in time for bill pre-filing activities leading to 2011 legislative sessions in numerous statehouses.

Target customers will include corporate governmental affairs professionals, multi-state lobbyists, national associations and key governmental agencies.

Telran, owned by Andrew Fish, also operates New York StateWatch and Mississippi StateWatch and supports legislative information systems in six other states. Fish also is the managing partner of Texas Legislative Service, which has been providing legislative information since 1924.

The partnership with Telran and Fish extends The Dolan Co.’s reach into the $1 billion local, state and federal legislative information market. Dolan currently operates single-state legislative information services in Arizona and Oklahoma. It recently acquired Federal News Service, the premier provider of verbatim transcripts in the nation’s capital.

Dolan owns the Long Island Business News, Mississippi Business Journal, the Colorado Springs Business Journal, the Idaho Business Review and the Daily Journal of Commerce in Portland, Ore., among others.