About TheWatchdogs

The Problem

Your representatives in Congress make decisions every day that directly affect your life — your taxes, your healthcare, your kids' schools, your community's future. But unless you're watching C-SPAN full-time, you probably don't know what they actually did last week. You might catch a headline or see a tweet, but the full picture — what they say, how they vote, and what they choose to stay silent about — is scattered across dozens of sources and nearly impossible to follow.

That's not a left or right problem. It's an information problem. And it means the most basic function of representative democracy — knowing whether your representatives are actually representing you — is broken for most people.

What We Do

TheWatchdogs tracks every public action of every member of Congress we cover: their social media posts, floor votes, bill sponsorships, committee appearances, press conferences, and public statements. Every day, our automated pipeline collects this data, and our AI-assisted analysis engine produces a plain-language daily digest for each representative.

We don't tell you what to think. We show you what happened — in their own words, with the votes on the record — and let you decide whether your representatives are working for you.

Why This Exists

TheWatchdogs grew out of a simple frustration: the gap between what representatives say and what they actually do has never been wider, and the tools to close that gap haven't kept up.

It started with tracking one representative. Building the systems to collect their posts, cross-reference their rhetoric with their voting record, and surface the patterns that emerge over weeks and months of sustained attention. What became clear quickly was that these tools worked for any member of Congress — and that sustained, daily accountability changes the conversation in a way that one-off news cycles never do.

Today, TheWatchdogs covers the full Minnesota congressional delegation — all 8 House members and both Senators — with a clear path to national expansion. The approach is the same for every representative we track, regardless of party: collect the data, present it fairly, and let citizens draw their own conclusions.

Why Nonpartisan

The founder of this project grew up wanting to study political science and got involved in politics early. He's served on a nonpartisan city board. He's watched the political discourse shift dramatically over the past two decades and he's seen firsthand how accountability disappears when everything becomes about teams instead of outcomes.

TheWatchdogs exists because accountability shouldn't depend on which party someone belongs to. A representative who says one thing and votes another way is a problem regardless of whether there's an R or a D next to their name. We believe citizens deserve better than having to choose between partisan media that only holds the other side accountable, and we believe most people — regardless of where they fall politically — share a basic expectation: that the people they elect should do what they said they'd do.

We apply the same standards, the same scrutiny, and the same fairness to every representative we cover. That's not a marketing decision. It's the only way this works.

Our Values

By the Numbers

TheWatchdogs has collected and analyzed over 97,000 social media posts, 10,000 congressional votes, and 1,400+ video transcripts across the Minnesota delegation. Every data point feeds into daily digests designed to answer one question: is your representative actually representing you?

AI-Assisted, Human-Directed

TheWatchdogs uses AI to help synthesize large volumes of public data into readable daily summaries. The AI operates within strict editorial guardrails — including anti-hallucination checks, fairness standards, and source verification — designed to prevent the failure modes that make AI-generated content unreliable.

But the editorial direction, quality standards, and accountability framework are human decisions. AI is a tool that makes it possible for a small team to cover 10 representatives daily at a level of depth that would otherwise require a full newsroom. It doesn't set the agenda, pick the stories, or decide what matters. That's our job — and ultimately, yours.

We're transparent about our use of AI because we believe accountability tools should be accountable themselves. Our full methodology, including all seven editorial guardrails, is published and open to scrutiny. If you spot something wrong, we want to know.