Charles Blain is the founder and editor of Local Insights, a Houston-based civic-data project. He leads reporting, public-records research, verification and product direction for tools and investigations about Texas government.[1]
Start with When Texas Says No →
Education
Studies in Political Science, American Political Studies concentration
[3]Links
Local Insights
X · cjblain10 Founder and Editor · Local Insights
Career
Blain studied political science with an American Political Studies concentration at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He moved to Texas to work on Greg Abbott’s 2014 gubernatorial campaign and launched Urban Reform in 2019. His earlier institutional biography identifies leadership of Urban Reform and Urban Reform Institute.[3][1]
Contributions
Local Insights indexes county documents, makes them searchable with OCR and publishes lookups with refresh dates. When Texas Says No classifies Attorney General letter rulings by outcome and lets readers inspect agencies, exceptions and annual data. The page distinguishes rulings from all public-information requests, labels a change in provision-extraction methods at the 2023/2024 boundary and warns that signer associations do not establish causation. Readers can download the underlying tables and inspect the methodology.[1][2]
Tools, writing & talks
Tools
Start here
When Texas Says Nolocalinsights.aiAn interactive analysis of Texas public-records letter rulings, with downloadable tables and explicit measurement limits.
Start with the explanation and methodology before comparing agencies. No coding prerequisite; distinguish letter rulings from all requests and check the extraction-method boundary before interpreting trends.
Local Insights founder and editor; publication-level analysis credit[2]
Apps
- LocalInsights AI Government Trackerlocalinsights.ai
Interactive map tracking AI adoption, spending, and policies across 550+ local governments in all 50 US states.
Catalog workOriginal source
Writing, research & talks
- Local Insights mission and mastheadlocalinsights.ai
The project’s source, correction and coverage standards, with the named founder and editor.
Founder and editor[1]