Tim Wallis never really left politics.
His foray into the political world took place in 2018, when he entered the Democratic primary against three other candidates for North Carolina State Senate District 38. Wallis campaigned on a platform of education reform, environmental protection and mental health care and ultimately brought in 2.6 percent of votes.
Wallis moved on after that, personally as well as geographically. He moved to Somerville and began working for the Boston-based Eliassen Group, doing agile coaching for software companies. His experience on the North Carolina campaign trail, though, stuck with him.
“I was going to all these campaign events the local party was running,” Wallis recalled. “There was a guy there who went to every single event, every single candidate, and tried to get somebody to care about his pet issue: getting some legislation to solve the problem of stray animals in cities.”
Wallis had respect for the issue, as well as the man’s drive to be heard. But politically, Wallis wasn’t the right man. He was running on education reform, not stray animals. That was the case for every other politician on the campaign trail too; ultimately, the man could not get anyone to care about his problem, let alone take action on it.
Wallis sees this example as emblematic of a larger problem: When legislators represent a large number of constituents, it simply isn’t possible for all of those constituents’ pet issues to be heard. Citizen-driven measures like ballot measures and petition drives are imperfect solutions, Wallis says, because they run up against the same bottleneck.
Wallis came up with a solution that combines his political experience with the technical knowhow he’s gained at the Eliassen Group, Red Hat and elsewhere. In March, he founded a startup called Turq, whose online platform enables anyone to write bills for elected officials to vote on. Citizens can create legislation using a simple form that asks for the name of the bill, the chapter of the state legal code that would be amended by it, a statement of purpose and the bill’s provisions. Turq users can also put money behind existing Turq bills by pledging toward crowdfunding campaigns.
“We’re trying to actually empower the people themselves to create their own legislation to address the problems that impact them every day,” Wallis said. “We enable people to draft the pieces of legislation themselves, and then we pipeline those pieces of legislation into a state Legislature to get them voted on directly.”
Turq, which is registered as a public benefit corporation, is focusing first on the Massachusetts State House by taking advantage of the state constitution’s “by request” clause, which allows citizens to ask their legislators to present bills even if those bills do not have the support of the legislators who file them. Through Turq, Bay Staters have introduced two pieces of legislation so far: one to regulate the use of chemical pesticides on golf courses, and one that would require financial literacy education in Massachusetts public schools. (Both bills were referred to the House Rules committee, where they currently remain.)
At the moment, the Brighton-based Turq has quite a small team. Alongside Wallis, who heads up the startup as CEO, are chief revenue officer John Daley and chief technology officer Michael Conlon. No one is full-time; although Wallis works on Turq about 40 hours a week, he is still an agility coach.
The startup is also still bootstrapped, although the team has begun talking to venture capital firms and is working toward a seed round.
Wallis and his team are next looking to expand to different local governments, starting with city councils within Massachusetts. That will require Turq to have a direct relationship with city councilors in those municipalities. Without the “by request” provision, councilors will have to introduce ordinances on Turq’s behalf, but Turq can still serve as a middleman between politicians and constituents to pipeline legislation quickly. Turq’s platform also serves as a way to teach elected officials about their constituents’ priorities outside of traditional polling mechanisms, Wallis said.
Turq will likely never expand into national politics. The platform is designed for hyperspecific, localized issues—the things that are easier, in Wallis’s eyes, to address via local government. Active issues on Turq’s site currently include civil asset forfeiture, in-state tuition for veterans, abolishing broker fees and requiring schools to provide course credit for equivalent classes taken during military training.
“That type of stuff is usually mostly addressed at the state and local level more than federal,” Wallis said. “But in addition to that, federal issues tend to be more politically charged. They’ve got a wide-reaching range, and they tend to be things people get more tribal about, whereas we’re seeking to hyperspecific legislation. It’s easier to effect change at the state and local levels.”
