Led by E.J. Fagan, associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois Chicago, the Illinois Policy Agendas Project is a frequently updated database that categorizes outputs from the Illinois government into 20 major policy topic areas and 220 subtopic areas. These data help Illinoisians understand the issues that their government is working on. The project was launched in 2025 as part of the Comparative Agendas Project, a collaboration between researchers more than thirty countries to classify government outputs around the world. Available datasets currently include State of the State speeches by Illinois governors. The project will add bills introduced to the Illinois General Assembly in Fall 2025 and additional datasets going forward.
This figure shows the percentage of each State of the State speech coded under each major topic area by year.