Congress and the Internet: Highlights

Congress and the Internet: Highlights

Order Code RL34148
Congress and the Internet: Highlights
August 29, 2007
Walter J. Oleszek
Senior Specialist
Government and Finance Division

Congress and the Internet: Highlights
Summary
The relationship between Congress and the Internet is complex and
multifaceted. Today, scores of technology measures are introduced in the House and
Senate, influencing the work of nearly all congressional committees and Members
and spawning the growth of a new array of interest groups. The Internet’s influence
is evident within and between the chambers of Congress.
Despite widespread discussion about how the Internet will revolutionize
legislative politics and policymaking, Congress usually reacts cautiously to the use
of new technologies. This report explores how new technologies are introduced to
Congress; discusses the impact of the Internet on two key centers of institutional
power — committees and political parties — and provides a number of summary
observations about the internet and congressional governance.
This report will be updated only if warranted by new developments.

Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Technological Innovations Come to Capitol Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Electronic Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Televising Floor Proceedings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Computers and Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
An Overview of the Internet’s Role on Capitol Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Committees and the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Turf Rivalry and the Internet: An Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Parties and Policymaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The Internet and Congress: Summary Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Transparency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Constituent Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Information Access/Overload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Deliberation and Decisionmaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Additional Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Congress and the Internet: Highlights
Introduction
The pace of technological change in today’s society is truly remarkable.
“Moore’s law” is a good example. Gordon Moore, former head of the world’s largest
semiconductor maker (Intel), correctly predicted in 1965 that the computing speed
of silicon chips would double every year.1 Rapid advances in telecommunications
have ended the constraints of time and distance and led commentators to call ours
the “Information Age,” the “Knowledge Society,” the “Digital Age,” or the
“Networked Nation.” Personal computers, Blackberries®, laptops, interactive
television, wireless networks, and more are technological devices reshaping the
habits and routines of individuals and institutions, including the U.S. Congress.
The relationship between Congress and the Internet is multifaceted. The
emergence of any major technological development (railroads, radio, automobiles,
etc.) always give rise to legislative debates about the need for new tax, regulatory, or
management laws. The Internet is no exception. It has expanded the legislative
agenda and influenced aspects of the lawmaking process. Congress is now grappling
with a host of complex Internet-related issues heretofore not on its agenda, such as
the extent to which copyright protections should be extended to material transmitted
in cyberspace or whether state and local governments should collect sales taxes on
goods and services traded on the Internet.
Today, scores of information technology bills are introduced in the House and
Senate in each Congress, influencing the work of nearly all congressional committees
and Members and spawning the growth of a new array of interest groups. For
example, after ignoring Washington for years, Google embraced the lobbying world
“in a scramble to match bases long established here by competitors like Yahoo and
Microsoft, as well as the deeply entrenched telecommunications companies.”2 Thus,
the invention of the internet as a new communications medium formed by the
interconnection of numerous computers has led Congress into new frontiers of
lawmaking, oversight, and representation.
The Internet’s influence is also evident within and between the chambers of
Congress. Nearly every nook and cranny is filled with diverse technologies. For
example, Member and committee offices are “wired” to various electronic networks;
numerous data bases available via the Internet; provide lawmakers, committees, and
1 Paul Abrahams and Louise Kehoe, “Moore’s Law Sets the Pace of Progress,” Financial
Times, June 2-3, 2001, p. 7.
2 Kate Phillips, “Once a Maverick, Google Joins the Lobbying Herd,” New York Times,
March 29, 2006, p. A1.

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staff aides with a wide range of information; legislative support units, such as the
Congressional Research Service, Government Accountability Office, or Government
Printing Office, integrate the Internet into their work; committees and lawmakers
maintain their own websites.3 Each chamber has its own intranet; thousands of staff
use BlackBerrys® or other portable devices; and the exchange of legislative e-mail
addresses is as common as trading telephone numbers. There is even a bicameral,
bipartisan Internet Caucus which has as one of its prime goals moving Congress ever
more quickly into the information age. Outside organizations such as the
Congressional Management Foundation and The Congress Online Project (affiliated
with George Washington University) provide relevant information and ideas to
congressional offices on how they might enhance their use of electronic
communications.
Despite widespread discussion about how the Internet will revolutionize
politics and policymaking, Congress usually reacts cautiously to new complexities
and innovations. “The Congress never moves as fast as the rest of the world does,”
said one senator.4 Long-standing traditions, customs, and procedures exert a
powerful influence in both the House and Senate and inhibit frequent changes in the
way Congress conducts its day-to-day work. However, Congress also recognizes
that, “ready or not,” it must adopt certain new technologies both to enhance
lawmakers’ performance and to remain a relevant and effective branch of the national
government.
The purposes of this report are several: explore how new technologies are
allowed in or introduced to the Congress; discuss the impact of information
technology on the two principal centers of institutional power — committees
(jurisdictional competition, for example) and parties (communications strategies, for
instance) — and provide a number of summary observations about the Internet and
congressional governance.
Technological Innovations Come to Capitol Hill
Members of Congress often approach the application of new technology to
legislative processes with a mix of caution, skepticism, and resistance. As one
lawmaker put it: “Whatever the future holds, we can be sure of one thing: At first,
Congress will always be very good at resisting it.”5 This general attitude among
many lawmakers is understandable. Change often brings in its wake both pluses and
minuses and has the potential to change the distribution of influence within Congress.
Before lawmakers sign on to change, they want to know: Who stands to win or lose
power with the new technology? Are there electoral risks associated with its use?
What are its costs and benefits? Will Members become too dependent on the
technology? How long will it be before the technology becomes obsolete? What
3 Kelly McCormack, “Congressional Websites,” The Hill, June 20, 2007, p. 34.
4 Edward-Isaac Dovere, “Legislative Pace Appears To Be On Track,” The Hill, July 25,
2001, p. 29.
5 Susan Crabtree, “Congress in the 21st Century,” Roll Call, January 24, 2000, p. B-1.

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rules or customs are likely to change if the new technology is used by the Congress?
Is the new technology applicable to all the functions of Congress? What is the best
way to integrate the technology into the legislative process? The list of questions can
go on and on.
The point is that just because new technologies are constantly developed and
marketed does not mean they will find ready acceptance in the Congress or even
among the general public. For example, a scholar pointed out that the video
telephone was demonstrated at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City. Although
home units of the video telephone became available in the 1990s, there seemed to
be little public interest in employing them.
Why? The camera would add an unwelcome burden to the technique of conversation.
You would need to look your best, be careful about facial expressions (you’re being
recorded), and perhaps be forced to tidy up the visible background.6

A look at the lengthy process of introducing electronic voting machines in the House,
gavel-to-gavel television coverage of House and Senate floor proceedings, and
computers in Congress highlights the general legislative pattern of resistance
followed by embracement.
Electronic Voting
On June 1, 1869, Thomas Edison was granted a patent by the U.S. Patent Office
for his electric vote recorder. “Having observed the great loss of time attending roll
calls for votes in Congress,” Edison conceived the idea for an electronic voting
machine.7 He explained that the places where lawmakers sat would be wired to a
central receiving instrument:
In front of each member of the House [would be] two buttons, one for aye and one
for no. By the side of the Speaker’s desk was erected a square frame, in the upper
part of which were two dials, corresponding to the two classes of votes. Below the
dials were spaces in which numbers appeared. When the vote was called for, each
member pressed one or another of the buttons before him and ... the number of votes
appeared automatically on the record. All the speaker had to do was to glance at the
dial and announce the result.8
Edison believed that his voting machine would win wide acceptance by state
legislatures and the U.S. Congress. He was wrong. For example, the Massachusetts
Legislature rejected Edison’s machine on the ground that it would infringe on the
minority’s right to delay action on legislation. Undeterred, Edison went to
Washington, D.C., and demonstrated his apparatus to a committee chairman whose
panel was authorized to purchase such equipment. The chairman told Edison:
6 Edward Tenner, “We the Innovators,” U.S. News & World Report, January 10, 2000, p. 75.
7 Matthew Josephson, Edison: A Biography (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1992), p. 65.
8 Ibid., p. 66.

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Young man, that is just what we do not want. Your invention would destroy the
only hope that the minority would have of influencing legislation.... And as the
ruling majority knows that at some day they may become a minority, they will
be as much averse to change as their opponents.9
Still, there was some support in the House for Edison’s voting machine. On
July 6, 1870, the chamber considered a report from the Committee on Rules
recommending that the House experiment with a voting machine to expedite the
counting of votes. “I believe a machine like this, which will facilitate the taking of
the yeas and nays in this House,” declared Representative Samuel Cox of New York,
“is consonant with the spirit of our progressive country and our progressive age.”10
Another member, Representative Thomas Ferry of Michigan, stressed the large
amount of time that would be saved by using the new voting apparatus. During a
session of the 40th Congress, he said, “the roll was called three hundred and forty-six
times, consuming one hundred and fifteen hours, which would be some twenty-three
days, or a calendar month.”11 These arguments were unsuccessful, and the House
tabled (or killed) the proposition by a roll call vote of 86 to 82.
One hundred years passed before the House authorized the use of electronic
voting equipment for roll call votes or quorum calls. The relevant part of Section
121 of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 (P.L. 91-510; 84 Stat.1140) stated:
“[U]pon any roll call or quorum call, the names of such Members voting or present
may be recorded through the use of appropriate electronic equipment.” In the interim
between Edison’s time and 1970, there were periodic calls from lawmakers and
others to install electronic voting equipment. In 1945, for instance, two House
members testified before the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress and
recommended an automatic roll call device. Twenty years later about a dozen
lawmakers testified in favor of electronic voting in the House before another joint
reorganization committee. Then, in the midst of large public concern about secrecy
in Congress, especially the lack of recorded votes in the Committee of the Whole (the
prime amending forum in the House), the 1970 LRA made provision for recording
the names of lawmakers either by tally clerks or an electronic device. A bipartisan
coalition of lawmakers deserves large credit for generating public support for
recording these votes. They employed an anti-secrecy strategy which gathered
support from editorial writers and public interest groups across the country. The
electronic voting provision became effective on January 23, 1973.
Periodically, suggestions are made in the Senate to permit electronic voting. On
January 6, 1987, for example, Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia
introduced a resolution (S.Res. 29, 100th Congress) to permit electronic voting on
measures or matters, subject to the joint approval of the Democratic and Republican
leaders.12 To date, the Senate has yet to emulate the House and install electronic
voting. One reason for the Senate’s reluctance to modernize its voting system is that
9 Ibid.
10 Congressional Globe, vol. 42, July 6, 1870, p. 5250.
11 Ibid.
12 Congressional Record, vol. 133, January 6, 1987, p. S92.

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many Senators prefer the drama associated with calling the roll on highly
controversial issues where the outcome is in doubt. Furthermore, during the period
when the roll is called, many Senators welcome the opportunity to discuss legislative
business with colleagues and to socialize with one another.
Televising Floor Proceedings
Not until the 1970s did the House make a concerted effort to employ a
technology — television — that had been in American homes a quarter century
earlier. Like electronic voting, legislative resistance to television was strong. Many
lawmakers argued that if floor sessions were televised, it would promote
grandstanding, distort floor proceedings, encourage broadcasters to portray Congress
unfairly (focusing on members reading newspapers rather than paying attention to the
discussion, for example), and be too complicated and boring for the average viewer.
Even as early as the 1920s, however, lawmakers began proposing radio coverage of
the House and Senate and later, with the invention of television, they introduced
legislation authorizing radio and television coverage of chamber and committee
proceedings.
A television “first” occurred on the opening day of the 80th Congress (1947-
1949), when TV coverage of the House was permitted for the first — and last —
time until the 1970s. (Television was allowed in the chamber for the president’s
State of the Union message or for speeches by certain dignitaries, but key party
leaders opposed its wider use.) House and Senate committees were sometimes
televised — for example, the nationally televised hearings in the 1950s on the
communist threat or the 1960s hearings on the Vietnam War — subject to the rules
of the pertinent panels. For a time in the 1950s, Speaker Sam Rayburn even banned
televised committee hearings, arguing that they were not authorized by House rules.
For example, on February 25, 1952, in response to an inquiry from GOP Leader
Joseph Martin, Speaker Rayburn said: “There being no rule with reference to
television or radio, the Chair interprets that the rules of the House shall apply to the
committees whether they sit in Washington or outside of Washington.” Not until
enactment of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 did the House and Senate
formally authorize the televising of committee hearings subject to committees’
broadcasting rules.
Pressure to extend television coverage to floor proceedings, especially in the
House, continued into the 1970s, a time of heightened public interest in “sunshine in
government” and legislative-executive clashes over the Vietnam War. According to
Donald Wolfensberger, who served as a top staff aide to the House Rules
Committee’s 1975-1976 ad hoc subcommittee on broadcasting, “[w]hat gave impetus
to televising House floor debates was the recognition by the Democratic leadership
in early 1970 that President Richard Nixon was dominating the airwaves with
defenses of his Vietnam War policies, while Congressional opponents were not being
given equal access by the networks.”13 Finally, after several closed-circuit tests were
13 Don Wolfensberger, “20 Years of House TV: A Bipartisan Reform For a Partisan Era?”
Roll Call, March 18, 1999, p. 6. For more comprehensive treatments of Congress and
(continued...)

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authorized by the Speaker, the House on March 19, 1979, went public for the first
time with live floor coverage carried over the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network
(C-SPAN) whose founder, Brian Lamb, was instrumental in transforming the House
floor into the “electronic gallery.”
If the House was slow to permit gavel-to-gavel broadcast coverage of its floor
proceedings, the Senate was even slower. On May 2, 1924, the Senate did agree to
a resolution sponsored by Senator Robert Howell, whose background was in radio,
to consider the radio broadcasting of the chamber’s floor proceedings. Many
senators opposed Howell’s proposal, including Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge,
who stated: “I do not at all know whether or not the Senate desires to have everything
which is said here broadcasted.”14 Nothing ever came of Howell’s broadcast idea
until July 29, 1986, when the Senate, after a six-week trial period, voted 78 to 21 to
permit live gavel-to-gavel radio and television coverage of its floor proceedings over
C-SPAN II.15
Institutional pride, competition, and self-image were among the prime factors
that contributed to the Senate vote in favor of televised coverage.16 Senators, who
were accustomed to receiving much more publicity than rank-and-file House
members, were concerned about the heightened public visibility accorded the House
and its lawmakers. A telling argument for television coverage heard over and over
again in the Senate was made by Majority Leader Howard Baker, “My point is that
the House of Representatives will become the dominant congressional branch of
government of the United States, simply because the public has access to their
13 (...continued)
television, see Stephen Frantzich and John Sullivan, The C-Span Revolution (Norman, OK:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1996) and Ronald Garay, Congressional Television: A
Legislative History (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984).
14 Quoted in Richard Baker [the Historian of the Senate], “Senate Historical Minute: May
2, 1924 Radio Days,” The Hill, May 2, 2001, p. 6. See Len Allen, “Television From the
Senate Floor,” Senate Communications With the Public, A Compilation of Papers Prepared
for the Commission on the Operation of the Senate (Washington: GPO: 1977), pp. 87-107.
15 In February 1978, Senate debate on the Panama Canal treaties was broadcast live by
National Public Radio to an estimated 4.5 million listeners. See Linda Charlton, “Senate
Makes Radio History, And Static, With Canal Debate,” New York Times, February 9, 1978,
p. 15. Starting in February 1978, Senators could listen to floor debate over so-called
“squawk boxes.” See Irwin B. Arieff, “‘Squawk-Box’ Loophole: Senators Can Beam Home
Speeches from Senate Floor,” Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, May 19, 1979, p.
948. As one journalist wrote, if Senators “stay at their [office] desks, the machine age will
save them — a tiny radio squawk box brings floor debate to them, live.” See Ward Sinclair,
“The Closing of the Senate Club,” Washington Post Magazine, April 23, 1978, p. 9. In June
1978, Speaker Thomas O’Neill announced that the “House’s public address system would
be opened to broadcasters for radio coverage of floor activities.” See “Radio Gets To Pick
Up House, Not Cover It,” Broadcasting, June 12, 1978, p. 42.
16 Richard F. Fenno, Jr., “The Senate Through the Looking Glass: The Debate Over
Television,” Legislative Studies Quarterly, vol. XIV, August 1989, pp. 313-348.

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proceedings, if we do not provide similar access here.”17 Senate Democratic leader
Byrd added, “Many people think Congress is only what they see on TV — Tip
O’Neill and the House of Representatives — and it shouldn’t be that way.”18 In the
judgment of Speaker Thomas O’Neill, “They got a little tired of us grabbing the
news.”19 Many Senators, too, wanted their own electronic “bully pulpit” as a
counterweight to the White House’s.
Computers and Congress
The introduction of information technologies to Congress was also a slow
process. A lawmaker in the mid-1960s who opposed (perhaps feared) computers for
Congress stated, “In my opinion, it will be a sorry day for the country when
Congressmen have been replaced by computers.”20 Nonetheless, there were
lawmakers during this period who recognized the importance and value of
technology for congressional use. They proposed legislation to encourage use of
automatic data processing systems to better manage, store, and retrieve information,
making Congress less dependent on the executive branch or special interests for data
and analysis.21 Several House and Senate committees and other legislative entities
also examined: (1) where to apply computer technology (Member offices,
committees, administrative units, and so on); for (2) what purposes (payroll
preparation, inventory control, mail preparation, etc.); and (3) how it could best be
used to assist lawmakers in making informed judgments on a myriad of complex
issues.22 For instance, a proposal by a committee reform panel won Senate adoption
on February 4, 1977, of a resolution requiring establishment of a computerized
scheduling system for all Senate committees. Still, by 1993, a report of the Joint
Committee on the Organization of Congress noted:
17 Congressional Record, vol. 128, April 14, 1982, p. S3476.
18 Steven Roberts, “Senators Ponder Value of Letting TV in the Door,” New York Times,
September 16, 1985, p. B6.
19 Karen Tumulty, “Senate Decides to Live With TV,” Los Angeles Times, July 30, 1986,
p. 11.
20 Quoted in Rep. Fred Schwengel, “Information Handling: ‘For a Vast Future Also’,” in
Mary McInnis, ed., We Propose: A Modern Congress (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p.
312.
21 For a summary overview of some of these developments, see Bruce Hopkins,
“Congressional Reform: Toward a Modern Congress,” Notre Dame Lawyer, vol. 47,
February, 1972, pp. 452-460.
22 For example, in 1969 the Special Subcommittee on Electrical and Mechanical Office
Equipment of the Committee on House Administration established a Working Group on
Automatic Data Processing to develop an automatic data processing system for the House.
Prominent outside organizations, such as the Stanford Research Institute and The MITRE
Corporation, and academics (political science professors Richard Fenno, Charles Jones, and
Donald Matthews, among others) served as advisors and consultants to the Working Group.
See Second Progress Report of the Special Subcommittee on Electrical and Mechanical
Office Equipment, Prepared by The Working Group on Automatic Data Processing for the
House of Representatives, Committee on House Administration (October 1970).

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Congress is an institution that has not kept pace with the developments in
technology widely used in society. The House and Senate spend more than $150
million per year on information and technology resources, yet critical
information is often not readily available to the Members. There is little
coordination between the entities that provide technological support to the
Congress. Members require modern technological support to deal with the scope
and variety of information on a huge span of issues. It is not being provided.23
Technological development on Capitol Hill accelerated in the mid-1990s
because of the determined effort of many lawmakers to bring information age
technology to Capitol Hill. Speaker Newt Gingrich was a strong champion of
employing diverse technologies — the “cyber-Congress” — to empower both
individual lawmakers and individual citizens to acquire an expanded range of
legislative information in a timely and cost-effective manner. An advocate of greater
openness and transparency in congressional deliberations, Gingrich wanted
legislative information “available to any citizen in the country at the same moment
that it is available to the highest paid Washington lobbyists.”24
Soon after he became Speaker in 1995, Gingrich inaugurated a publicly
available computer system called THOMAS (after Thomas Jefferson) in the Library
of Congress. THOMAS, [http://thomas.loc.gov], is an online legislative information
resource that provides information (bill summaries and status updates, committee
reports, the Congressional Record, etc.) previously accessible only to Capitol Hill
staff and Washington lobbyists. This internet-accessed system was a watershed event
for it made the legislative process more transparent and promoted the availability of
materials about the Congress. Not everything of legislative significance is available
on THOMAS, such as the “chair’s mark” (the draft legislative text) to be considered
during the committee amendment, or markup, stage), but THOMAS provides a large
amount of current and unfiltered information about Congress to the general public.
In 1995, Speaker Gingrich directed a Computer and Information Services
Working Group to upgrade and revamp the House’s information system. Two years
later, the Speaker supported adoption of a new House rule: “Each committee shall
make its publications available in electronic form to the maximum extent feasible.”
Previously, committee publications were available only in printed form. Two years
later, the Library of Congress and the Congressional Research Service, at the
instruction of the Senate Committees on Appropriations and Rules and
Administration, brought online a legislative information retrieval system (the LIS)
23 Background Materials: Supplemental Information Provided To Members of the Joint
Committee on the Organization of Congress, Joint Committee on the Organization of
Congress, S. Prt. 103-25, 103rd Congress, First Session (Washington, GPO: 1993), p. 1624.
During 1975 and 1976, the House Commission on Information and Facilities studied, among
other things, whether “the scope and complexity of the issues facing Congress may have
surpassed the ready availability of the information and analysis required by Congress to deal
effectively with those issues.” See Final Report of the House Commission on Information
and Facilities (Washington, GPO: 1977), p. 1.
24 Gary Ruskin, “America Off-Line: Gingrich’s Unfulfilled Internet Promise,” Washington
Post, November 16, 1997, p. C2.

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that is “available only within the legislative branch.”25 In 2007, Speaker Nancy
Pelosi urged all House committees to utilize technology to provide live broadcasts
of their hearings online (“Webcasts”) so as to make the legislative process “fully
accessible and transparent” to the public.26 (A number of outside entities, such as the
Sunlight Foundation, [http://www.sunlightfoundation.com], strive to promote more
transparency of and accessibility to the legislative branch by the citizenry.)27
To summarize, a number of significant forces and factors commonly combine
to trigger technological change on Capitol Hill. First, new innovations arrive in the
House or Senate because key committees and determined lawmakers champion their
value. Second, external challenges from the White House or other places require the
House and Senate to embrace technology as a way to modernize and strengthen their
competency and effectiveness. Third, lawmakers recognize the “competitive
advantage” of technology. It enables Members to better manage their workload, serve
their constituents, and communicate policy and political views to a wide audience.
Fourth, technology can be designed and structured to accommodate the unique
requirements, responsibilities, procedures, traditions, and operations of the legislative
branch. Fifth, the broader political environment — the ever-expanding development
and use of new technology in society — fosters support for technological innovation
and weakens resistance to change on Capitol Hill. Sixth, outside entities encourage
wider use of appropriate technology by the House and Senate. Seventh, election
results produce an influx of new Members who, having grown up using a variety of
electronic devices, advocate and support technological innovation in the legislative
branch. Lastly, there has been a rapid increase in the number of constituents
knowledgeable in use of new technologies, such as the Internet, who are prepared to
demand from Congress “better and more information, faster communication time,
and ready accessibility to their lawmakers.”28
An Overview of the Internet’s Role on Capitol Hill
Today, every lawmaker is an “electronic legislator” to one degree or another
because the major functions of Congress — representation, lawmaking, and oversight
— are all affected by technology. Members’ representational role has probably been
affected the most by the array of new information technologies. Constituents may
25 Jeffrey C. Griffith, “Congress’s Legislative Information Systems: THOMAS and the LIS,”
Government Information Quarterly, vol. 18, (2001), p. 45.
26 Elizabeth Brotherton, “Webcasting Goes Mainstream Among House Committees,” Roll
Call, March 7, 2007, p. 3.
27 The Sunlight Foundation, in May 2007, issued its “Open House Project” report
containing 10 ways to strengthen the sharing of information between Congress and
lawmakers’ constituents. Two examples: require House committees to place promptly
online the transcripts of their proceedings and make available to the public over the Internet
broadcast-quality video of House and Senate floor activity and all committee hearings. See
the website of the Sunlight Foundation, cited in the text of this report.
28 Dennis W. Johnson, Congress OnLine (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 106.

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use e-mail to communicate their opinions around-the-clock to lawmakers.29 In turn,
many Members embrace the same technology to respond to voters’ inquiries.
Lawmakers can use filtering techniques to distinguish e-mail messages sent by
individuals from outside their district or state and choose not to respond to them. As
one legislator said: “Most members are not interested in the views of those who don’t
vote for them or have the potential to vote for them, so when an office is inundated
with [e-mail] messages, it is sometimes easier not to respond.”30
Lawmakers also use the Internet for e-campaigning purposes — raising money,
enlisting volunteers, or communicating political messages. “From a candidate’s
point of view,” noted one account, “the great advantage of the Internet is that you can
send a lot of information to a lot of people at minimal cost. The downside is: so can
your opponents and anyone else with a keyboard or a camera phone.”31 More
lawmakers, too, are starting their own blogs. (A blog — short for web log — is
generally a discussion of issues and events by an individual or group of contributors.)
“Blogging lets me bypass [the conventional press and media] and take my message
directly to many voters,” said one lawmaker. Another Member noted: “I think this
whole medium has proven to be something not just for people who sit at a computer
but who want to get involved” in the political process.32 The Internet, in brief,
expands the concept of “representation” beyond a distinct geographical area to
include people who share similar interests and policy preferences regardless of their
location on the planet.
Equally significant, the Internet has the potential to foster an interactive, or two-
way, process of communication between Members and their constituents, as well as
with other individuals and organizations. “Clearly the next phase [in Member-
constituent communications] that we’re moving to is an interactive phase, and blogs
or blog-like elements are part of that phase,” stated the deputy director of the
Congressional Management Foundation (a non-partisan Washington-based research
organization). “Members are going to be forced to think about how to become a little
bit more interactive.”33
Worth mention is that several lawmakers have created a “virtual town hall” on
their website and answer questions (“Ask George,” for example) put to them by
constituents. One lawmaker and his aides have consulted a large number of bloggers,
policy experts, public interest groups, and citizens on various Internet issues. The
Member said he will use the “information he collects to draft a bill, which he will
29 Elizabeth Brotherton, “E-mail Overloads Hill Offices,” The Hill, July 12, 2007, p. 3.
30 Johnson, Congress OnLine, p. 101.
31 “Campaigning on the Internet,” The Economist, March 17, 2007, p. 32.
32 K. Daniel Glover, “The Rise of Blogs,” National Journal, January 21, 2006, p. 34. The
two quotations in this paragraph are from this source.
33 Staci Zavattaro, “Members Seeing Advantage Of Plugging Into Blogsphere,”
CongressDailyAM, October 25, 2005, p. 8.

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then post online to gather more feedback before officially introducing the bill in the
fall.”34
Information technology affects the congressional process in numerous other
ways: from the ready supply of data and analysis for policy formulation, to the rise
of e-lobbying, to concerns that some form of electronic “direct democracy” might
short-circuit our representative system of government.35 Today, both the House and
Senate prohibit Members from using electronic devices on the floor for concern that
they would disrupt the deliberative process. As a House member stated: “There is
a sanctity to the floor of Congress. There are no constituents there, no lobbyists, no
interests other than your colleagues.”36 Another lawmaker viewed this matter
differently. “It’s ridiculous that we can’t have laptops on the floor,” he said. “We
could use laptops to get up-to-the-minute information while giving a speech or
receive a message from a staffer about something we should mention in the speech.
It would make things run that much more efficiently.”37 (There are occasions when
lawmakers read into the Congressional Record information from their Blackberry
that has been e-mailed to them by their staff.)
As for Congress’s oversight role, computer-based technologies are increasingly
being employed by committees to monitor executive branch performance and to
receive relevant information from administrative entities. A few examples illustrate
the point. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees rely upon information
technology to track the fiscal expenditures of executive agencies and programs and
evaluate their performance and cost-effectiveness. A March 2006 study of the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) by the Government Accountability Office
highlighted the user-friendly “For Congress” page on its website. The site provides
a single point of access for information and analysis relevant to congressional
oversight of the FAA. Two Senators established a website “to collect ideas from
citizens on how the government might offer more services and better online
information.”38
In 2006, President George W. Bush signed the Federal Funding Accountability
and Transparency Act into law. A number of House and Senate members advocated
enactment of this legislation. Informally called the “Google your government” law,
it requires the Office of Management and Budget in 2008 “to provide a user-friendly,
searchable database” of nearly $1 trillion in federal grants and contracts.39 The law
34 Joelle Tessler, “Virtual Lawmaking,” CQ Weekly, August 6, 2007, p. 2341.
35 Rep. David Dreier, “‘Virtual Congress’ Would Weaken Deliberative Process,” Roll Call,
December 20, 2001, p. 8.
36 Kathy Kiely, “Capitol Hill At a Crossroads on Info Highway,” USA Today, November
3, 1999, p. 24A.
37 Crabtree, “Congress in the 21st Century,” p. B-6.
38 Ben White, “Senators Go Looking for E-Ideas,” Washington Post, May 19, 2000, p. A29.
39 Bill Myers, “‘Google your government’ Database Bill Signed Into Law,” The Examiner,
September 29, 2006, p. 17. See CRS Report RL33680, The Federal Funding Accountability
and Transparency Act: Background, Overview, and Implementation Issues, by Garrett L.
(continued...)

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would enable any interested citizen or watchdog group to monitor federal spending,
thereby providing greater transparency and accountability to the government’s
funding decisions. No doubt many “citizen auditors” would make their evaluations
of federal expenditures known to congressional lawmakers and committees.
Relatedly, a Senator has declaimed that Congress needs “to enlist the public’s
help” in monitoring the performance of executive agencies.40 To do this the Senator
recommends placing on the website of executive entities the home page of the
Inspectors General (IGs) so IG reports can be easily accessed by interested
individuals. IGs conduct investigations and audits of the agencies in which they are
located to improve efficiency, end waste and fraud, and discourage mismanagement.
The Internet affects Congress’s operations in more ways than can be recounted
in this report. A brief mention of the Internet’s impact on two key centers of power
on Capitol Hill — committees and political parties — illustrates how technological
change can influence the work of the Congress.
Committees and the Internet
The Internet’s effect on committees is evident in many ways, as these examples
illustrate. Committees, as noted earlier, make many of their reports and documents
available on their home pages. The House Education Committee became the first
panel ever to create a Spanish-language website so Spanish-speakers could obtain
President George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” legislation in their native
language.41 House and Senate committee may organize interactive hearings with
witnesses located outside of Washington, DC, and allow viewers to e-mail their
questions to committee members.42 The House and Senate have procedures to utilize
cyberspace to promote “earmark” (funding for projects targeted to specific locales)
transparency. For example, Section 511 of S. 1 (the Honest Leadership and Open
Government Act of 2007) requires that before conference reports are voted upon,
they must be available to Members and the general public on a publicly available
website for 48 hours. Committee staff aides share information and analysis over the
internet. To be sure, outside groups use the Internet to quickly mobilize support or
opposition to legislation, nominations, or other matters being considered by a
committee. They may also strive to win committee assignments for lawmakers who
support the group’s issues.
Committee jurisdictions loom large with respect to the Internet because they are
central to congressional policymaking. Which committee has jurisdiction over a bill
determines how, when, and by whom the legislation is considered and whether
legislation will make it to the floor. Turf-conscious chairs seek to expand (or protect)
39 (...continued)
Hatch.
40 Congressional Record, vol. 153, July 25, 2007, S9888.
41 CongressDaily/PM, July 9, 2001, p. 7.
42 See, for example, Sean Piccoli, “Hill Samples ‘Third Wave,’” Washington Times, June
13, 1995, p. A8.

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their policy domains, especially when new issues or technologies appear on
Congress’s agenda. As a colleague said of one committee chairman, he “thought that
every bill that began with H.R. began in [his] Committee.”43 Committee leaders may
seek to exploit ambiguous committee boundaries or referral precedents to lay claim
to emerging or emergent issues.
In a knowledge-based society, the Internet influences virtually every kind of
social, legal, cultural, economic, or political activity. Understandably, lawmakers
and committees want a hand in shaping its development and to obtain a “piece of the
technology action” spawned by the Internet (computer security, telecommunications,
encryption, wireless broadband, and the like). As a rough indicator of heightened
committee and Member interest in Internet-related legislation, a search was made of
the LIS (Legislative Information Service) data base using the bucket term “Internet”
to determine how many measures introduced in the 104th (1995-1997) and 109th
(2005-2007) Congresses referenced that word in legislation. During the 104th
Congress, 26 bills introduced in the House and Senate addressed the topic of the
Internet. Eight House committees and three Senate committees received the
legislation. By the end of the 109th Congress, 567 measures mentioned the word
Internet; the bills were referred to nearly every House and Senate committee.
Any broad policy area — energy, environment, homeland security, or health
— commonly affects the jurisdiction of several House and Senate committees. It is
unsurprising, then, that the Internet has spawned jurisdictional rivalries as
committees strive to expand and protect their “turf” for a burgeoning policy area. A
case example illustrates how turf arouses the territorial instincts of committee
chairmen.
Turf Rivalry and the Internet: An Example. When the 107th Congress
(2001-2003) began, the House Energy and Judiciary panels had new chairmen
because of the six-year term limit rule adopted by the House in 1995. The Energy
and Judiciary chairmen both were known as strong defenders of their panel’s
jurisdictional mandate. The Energy chairman teamed with his ranking minority
member to introduce a bill (H.R. 1542) with over 100 cosponsors to amend the
landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996. H.R. 1542 would permit the regional
telephone companies, such as Verizon, to provide high-speed, or broadband, internet
service over their telephone lines without opening their local telephone markets to
competitive rivals (cable television companies or satellite companies, for example)
as required by the 1996 Act.44 A spokesman for the Energy panel emphasized that
our “Committee has sole jurisdiction over telecom policy.”45
The Judiciary chairman, concerned about the bill’s anti-trust implications,
launched a public lobbying campaign to win a referral of the legislation. He sent a
43 CongressDaily/PM, March 30, 2000, p. 6.
44 See Neil Munro and Geri Rucker, “The Battle for Broadband,” National Journal, May 26,
2001, pp. 1564-1568.
45 Peter Cobn, “House Judiciary Rings Up Telecom Measure,” CQDaily Monitor, June 13,
2001, p. 13.

CRS-14
highly detailed 11-page letter to the Speaker — and to the media — “making the case
for why Judiciary should receive a sequential referral of the bill. The Judiciary chair
also pressed his case with the House Parliamentarian.”46 (House rules state that the
Speaker refers all measures, but in practice the referral function is performed on his
or her behalf by the Parliamentarian. The Senate Parliamentarian also refers
legislation on behalf of the presiding officer.)
The Judiciary chair’s letter to the Speaker, which he posted on the panel’s
website, detailed the reasons why his committee wanted the telecommunications bill
referred to his panel. For example, he highlighted the long history of hearings (since
the 1950s) conducted by the Judiciary Committee on antitrust and the
communications industry. He spotlighted the legislation referred to Judiciary, either
on an exclusive basis or jointly with the Energy Committee, that dealt with the topic.
He cited reports accompanying telecommunications legislation prepared by the
Judiciary Committee. He also made explicit reference to House rules which, he
argued, justified the sequential referral of the Energy measure to his panel:
Rule X(1)(k)(5) of the Rules of the House of Representatives provides the
Committee on the Judiciary has jurisdiction over the ‘[p]rotection of trade and
commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies.” In addition, Rule
X(l)(k)(2) of the Rules of the House provides that the Committee on Judiciary
has jurisdiction over “[a]dministrative practice and procedure.” Fundamentally,
H.R. 1542 addresses a monopoly issue. It takes its place at the end of a long line
of legislative efforts that confront the monopoly power of incumbent local
exchange carriers in the telephone industry. For decades, such efforts have come
under the jurisdiction of the Committee on the Judiciary.47
A Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee strongly supported his
chair’s determination to protect the panel’s jurisdiction. He said, “I ... want to
express my appreciation and fervent desire to cooperate with the chairman in a
vigorous defense of the jurisdiction of this committee against any imperialist assaults
by other committees.”48

In mid-May 2001, the Speaker granted a 30-day sequential referral of H.R. 1542
to Judiciary, but limited its review of the bill to provisions dealing with the
Department of Justice. On June 13, 2001, the Judiciary Committee reported the
broadband legislation unfavorably and with an amendment “tearing out the heart of
the [Energy-reported] measure.”49 In order to avoid a nasty parliamentary fight on
the floor between the two chairmen, the Speaker asked the Energy chair to negotiate
differences with opponents of his bill, or he would not schedule the legislation for
46 Ben Pershing, “Sensenbrenner Goes Out of His Way to Defend Turf,” Roll Call, July 5,
2001, p. 3.
47 [http://www.house.gov/judiciary/broadband], p. 1.
48 Pershing, “Sensenbrenner Goes Out of His Way to Defend Turf,” p. 3.
49 J.P. Cassidy, “Rep. Tauzin Needs Deal to Win,” The Hill, August 8, 2001, p. 23.

CRS-15
floor consideration.50 The Speaker did schedule H.R. 1542 for floor consideration,
which the House adopted on June 27, 2002. The Senate took no action on the
legislation.
Committees may also draft memoranda of understanding to deal with Internet
issues that overlap their responsibilities. These memoranda, which have some
precedential value, are usually printed in the Congressional Record, kept on file in
the Parliamentarian’s Office, and may influence the reference of legislation
implicated by these inter-committee agreements. For instance, when the House
reconfigured its committee system at the start of the 107th Congress, two committees
(a new Financial Services Committee and the Energy panel) claimed authority for
“the electronic communications networks that automatically match buy and sell
orders for stock transactions.”51 In order to end the turf battle, the Speaker brokered
an agreement between the two panels which was entered in the Congressional
Record.52
Parties and Policymaking
The strategy for moving or blocking major legislation is often as much
semantic and technological as it is political or procedural. Congressional leaders
understand the importance of these components in framing issues, molding public
opinion, and generating grassroots support to achieve policy initiatives on Capitol
Hill. The shrewd use of words and communications strategies — calling the estate
tax the “death tax,” for example — is part of the competing stagecraft parties employ
to target their message, advance their agenda, attract popular support, and sway
public opinion. “Words frame people’s understanding of issues; language does our
thinking for us,” remarked Professor Kathleen Jamieson. “And so the person who
places vocabulary in the head of the audience controls the thought process.”53
Added a House Democratic leader about the importance of communication appeals
to the public, “We can do all we can with our inside maneuvering, but without the
outside mobilization we’ll never achieve what is possible.”54
50 Ibid.
51 Alan Ota, “House Panels Vie for Upper Hand In Regulating the New Economy,”
Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, January 13, 2001, p. 133.
52 Congressional Record, vol. 147, January 30, 2001, p. H103. It is common for committees
to waive their jurisdiction over measures in the interest of expediting floor consideration.
An exchange of letters is, however, usually inserted in the Congressional Record by the
respective chairmen stating that the waiver does not constitute a precedent for any
subsequent referral of legislation. In addition, the chairman of the panel which waives its
jurisdictional right to a bill often states that he/she reserves the right to seek conferees in any
subsequent conference with the Senate. See, for example, Congressional Record, vol. 147,
June 13, 2001, pp. H3105-H3106.
53 Josh Lohmer, “Searching for Words That Matter,” State Legislatures, July/August 2007,
p. 46.
54 John Nichols, “Is This the New Face of the Democratic Party?” The Nation, August 6 and
13, 2001, p. 13.

CRS-16
Technology and policy stagecraft are often interconnected elements of each
party’s legislative strategy, as highlighted by these three examples. First, in 1997
legislation was introduced in the GOP-controlled Congress targeting the Internal
Revenue Service (IRS) for change because of its overly aggressive approach to tax
enforcement. House Republicans also sponsored a public website during Halloween
to solicit “horror stories” from taxpayers whose dealings with the IRS were
unpleasant and negative. The website was titled “IRS Horror Stories.” “This
Halloween, the Republican Congress is unmasking the IRS for what it really is: a
bureaucratic monster stalking the American taxpayer,” declared a GOP leader. “Our
Web page is a silver bullet for taxpayers fighting [this governmental] beast.”55 The
House Republican initiative, combined with well-publicized hearings on the IRS by
the Senate Finance Committee, led to enactment of the Internal Revenue
Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998.
Second, President George W. Bush announced in May 2001 a comprehensive
initiative to promote domestic energy production through more drilling for oil and
gas, tax incentives to encourage energy production and conservation, and funds for
nuclear energy research and clean coal technology. Democrats attacked Bush’s plan
for emphasizing energy production over energy conservation and environmental
protection. For instance, Democrats set up a “war room” in the Capitol to coordinate
r a d i o a n d t e l e v i s i o n i n t e r v i e w s a n d o p e n e d a w e b s i t e ,
[http://www.grandoldpetroleum.com], to bolster public opposition to Bush’s plan.
Republican leaders responded by creating their own website,
[http://www.bushenergy.com], to encourage supporters to telephone radio shows with
the message that Bush “is doing everything he can — as soon as he can — to help
Americans who are feeling the energy crunch at the gas pump and in their utility
bills.”56 Both parties made available briefing materials online to party members,
which they could download and use in their states or districts either to attack or
promote the Bush energy plan, as the case might be.57 This legislation did not make
it out of Congress.
Third, public anger against health maintenance organizations (HMOs)
contributed to efforts by both congressional parties to take up legislation dealing with
this “hot” issue. In general, Democrats supported more federal regulation of HMOs
and Republicans leaned toward a market-based approach to health care reform. A
particularly divisive issue involved the Democratic proposal granting patients the
right to sue HMOs for malpractice. Republicans argued that the proposal would raise
the costs of health care and serve the interests of trial lawyers, a group commonly
viewed as a Democratic supporter. Democrats responded that Republicans favored
the insurance companies over patients. Given sharp party differences over this issue,
the stage was set for a public relations battle between the two sides.
55 John Godrey, “GOP Sets Up Web Site to Attract IRS Horror Stories,” Washington Times,
November 1, 1997, p. A4.
56 Mike Allen, “Democrats Turn Energy on Bush,” Washington Post, May 20, 2001, p. A9.
57 Mike Allen and Juliet Eilperin, “Bush, GOP Mount Effort to Sell Energy Plan,”
Washington Post, June 28, 2001, p. A8.

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When Democrats took over the Senate in June 2001 following Senator James
Jeffords’s switch of party affiliation from Republican to Independent, Majority
Leader Tom Daschle successfully made chamber enactment of a patients’ bill of
rights his top priority. As part of the strategy to widely broadcast the Democratic
health care message, Senator Daschle created an “intensive care unit” (ICU) in a
leadership conference room “equipped for live broadcasts over television, radio and
the Internet.”58 Democratic Senators went on-line to discuss HMO reform, rebut
opponent’s charges, and advertise the Democratic plan. Not to be outdone, Senate
Republicans established their own communications unit in the Capitol dubbed the
“delivery room” — after their stated goal of delivering an HMO bill that President
Bush would sign into law. The GOP’s room was also equipped with various
technological devices “from computers for interactive chats to cameras and
microphones for senators to use for interviews.”59 (This legislation was not signed
into law.) Plainly, the internet’s capacity for rapid information retrieval and instant
response means that it is a technology that cannot be ignored by either party in
showcasing signature issues, mobilizing internal and external support, and winning
policy and political objectives.
The Internet and Congress: Summary Views
The Internet’s impact on the legislative branch is extensive because it influences
nearly everything that Congress does, from policymaking to representation to
Member office operations. Odds favor even more extensive use of the Internet as a
new generation of technologically-sophisticated lawmakers enter the House and
Senate. Today, the use of various technologies is second nature to many young
congressional staff aides. They are in the vanguard of using and exploring the
Internet, in part because it permits them to “get smart quickly” on issues their
Members are interested in, as well as target and mobilize activists on behalf of those
topics. An interesting question is the extent to which it is technology or Internet-
savvy people who are changing the work routines of Capitol Hill. Needless to say,
it is increasingly important in the House and Senate to combine legislative skills with
technological expertise. Several other technological implications also merit mention.
They include transparency, constituent communications, information
access/overload, deliberation and decisionmaking, and additional considerations as
discussed below.
Transparency
New technology has produced the ability to store huge amounts of information
and to retrieve it quickly and efficiently. Remarkably, there is little cost in
transmitting the information, regardless of the distance between the sender and the
58 John Lancaster and Helen Dewar, “Daschle’s ‘Intensive Care Unit’ to Attend to Patients’
Rights,” Washington Post, June 18, 2001, p. A15.
59 Helen Dewar, “Dueling Rooms,” Washington Post, June 25, 2001, p. A13.

CRS-18
recipient.60 Hundreds of websites enable citizens to access reliable information and
electronic documents about Congress. These sites, whether public (the Library of
Congress or the Government Printing Office, for example) or commercial
(Congressional Quarterly Inc., for instance), provide an abundance of trustworthy
materials about the Congress to interested individuals. Internet access not only
provides opportunities for citizens to be better informed about Congress; it also
strengthens their ability to hold elected officials responsible and accountable for their
actions and decisions.
As more information becomes available online about Congress, there is also
more demand that additional materials be distributed electronically to the public. For
example, various groups have urged Congress to post online searchable voting
records of lawmakers or certain reports of the Congressional Research Service.
There may, of course, be many arguments raised in favor of withholding specific
materials at certain times. For example, after selected House and Senate members
negotiate for days or weeks to hammer out a fragile compromise which they must
then “sell” to colleagues, there may be an understandable reluctance to disseminate
the product to the general public before it has been reviewed by the majority and
minority leaders of Congress and the White House.
Constituent Communications
The Internet has changed the way lawmakers and their staff aides communicate
with constituents. Members can quickly keep constituents updated and informed
about their activities. As one Senator explained:
Our office ... uses a digital camera — which allows photographs to be
downloaded, printed, and disseminated almost instantly. On a recent trip to
Bosnia, for instance, I took pictures of our troops from Tennessee, downloaded
them into my laptop, e-mailed them to local newspapers in Tennessee, as well as
to my Washington office where they were posted on the Web for all to see. The
whole process took only a few minutes.61
Cyber-savvy legislators interact regularly in “chat rooms” with constituents in
their districts or states. Constituents, in turn, are able to quickly send e-mails to their
Members. The ease of sending e-mails to lawmakers has sometimes produced “e-
mail overload” in Congress with Members’ staff sometimes unable to be responsive
to the increasing volume of e-mails flooding their offices.62
Advocacy groups, too, are able to trigger constituent e-mails at internet speed.
When President Bush nominated John Ashcroft to be Attorney General, pro- and
anti-Ashcroft “websites sprung up within hours of the nomination, and helped
60 One reason the Internet has been embraced is because sending mass e-mails does not
spend lawmakers’ franking allowance.
61 Congressional Record, vol. 144, May 22, 1998, p. S5466.
62 See the report of the Congress Online Project, “E-Mail Overload in Congress,” March 19,
2001, p. 2.

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generate hundreds of thousands of messages to lawmakers.”63 Today, cyber-lobbying
through the Internet is an important form of grassroots activism.
Information Access/Overload
Members are inundated with information. There is so much information created
and distributed worldwide that much of it can be characterized as “negative
information.” Neither legislators nor staff aides have the time to sift through the
enormous amounts of available data to determine the useful from the useless. As
former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell said, “What we do not lack is the
means by which to learn about issues. There is no shortage of information. There
is a shortage of time.”64 The Internet’s prime virtue is the speed with which it can
make unmediated information and data available to policymakers. What is often
lacking on Capitol Hill is the time and human resources to make sense of it all and
to find the policy-shaping “nuggets” in the information deluge. Significantly,
lawmakers also need an array of legitimate information sometimes not easily found
on the Internet and which is more difficult to obtain or create, such as the
combination of political rewards or sanctions that might encourage wavering
colleagues to vote a certain way or credible defense and intelligence-related analyses
relevant to the use of military power.
Lawmakers and congressional staff are mindful that information quantity does
not mean information quality. Several pertinent questions they may consider per
downloaded reports or studies might include Who produced the information? Why?
Is it accurate, credible, and legitimate? What is the reputation of the source(s)? Does
the content of the material reflect an ideological bent? Like any means of
communication, the Internet can convey good and bad, right or wrong information.
Members, too, are mindful of representational fairness. Not all constituents have or
can use the Internet. Further, is one form of communication more valued than
another — a handwritten letter or an e-mail?
Deliberation and Decisionmaking
The range of issues that every legislator must vote upon is truly immense. On
any given day, lawmakers might be required to vote on measures involving defense,
higher education, abortion, taxes, or public works. To be sure, the Internet can help
Members make informed decisions. As one House member stated: “You know,
we’re in the information age and we’re making decisions in so many different areas
that it’s a huge help. I mean, from a policy standpoint, [computer technology is] very
productive for me and it’s a very productive way to learn.”65
63 Gail Russell Chaddock, “Behind Vote on Ashcroft, A Signal,” Christian Science Monitor,
February 2, 2001, p. 4.
64 Congressional Record, vol. 135, October 20, 1989, p. S13811.
65 George Archibald, “Technology Lets Lawmakers Remain Connected,” Washington Times,
September 12, 1999, p. C10.

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On the other hand, numerous factors shape how legislators make choices, not
just information. Constitutency-based, party-based, or ideologically-based decisions
are often more important than information-based judgments. In politics, an old
saying goes, facts are negotiable. Members frequently want “objective” analyses that
support their policy predispositions. Masses of reliable and timely data may be of
limited value to legislators making political determinations.
Paraxodically, although information and ideas can move with the speed of light,
lawmaking usually requires time for reflection and reasoned deliberation. These
qualities are often necessary to forge the consensus generally required to pass
legislation. The legislative process is replete with political and procedural “speed
bumps” that inhibit overly hasty action. A House leader in the “cyber-Congress”
movement put it this way: “The art of politics is the art of persuasion. When you’re
persuading, there’s nothing more important than face-to-face contact.”66 “Virtual
collegiality” through e-mails, laptops, or videoconferences is no substitute for the
hard work of building personal and political relationships between or among
lawmakers. “If I cannot eyeball you, I cannot see you, I cannot see your body
language, I can’t really listen to you,” declared one lawmaker.67 Or, as a top Senate
party leader said: “The Senate leadership role is about personal relationships.”68
Additional Considerations
The Internet has transformed much of the work of the legislative branch by
integrating technology into the day-to-day activities of the institution. It has
enhanced ability of lawmakers in Washington to communicate with their constituents
— the aforementioned “virtual town hall meetings,” for example, or party colleagues
will electronically share “good responses” to tough or critical constituent letters. The
Internet’s influence on the campaign trail is well-established (think fund-raising and
Web-based video or YouTube.com). It has also augmented Congress’s ability to
better oversee the executive branch by fostering greater administrative transparency
and serving as a vital research tool for committees, lawmakers, and staff.
Significantly, the Internet has given rise to a type of direct democracy,
expanding the influence of a growing community of online activists — politically
attentive “cyber-citizens” and/or bloggers. The result: lawmakers and the two
congressional parties no longer exercise the degree of control or influence over
legislative elections or policymaking that they once did. For example, Members who
block legislation or stymie action on amendments might be encouraged to change
course by a nation-wide coalition of bloggers able to generate countervailing public
sentiment. “In ways big and small,” wrote a news editor, “bloggers are changing how
business is done on Capitol Hill.”69
66 Kelly, “Capitol Hill At a Crossroads on Info Highway,” p. 24A.
67 Tom Price, Creating a Digital Democracy: The Impact of the Internet on Public Policy-
Making (Washington, D.C.: Foundation for Public Affairs, 1999), p. 14.
68 Ben Schneider, “Senate Leadership,” CongressDailyAM, August 2, 2007, p. 3.
69 Robert Bluey, “How Bloggers...Won On Earmark Reform,” The Examiner, January 18,
(continued...)

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Rapid advances in communications technology, such as the Internet, and new
uses for old mediums (talk radio and C-SPAN, for example) have promoted both
more open government and larger opportunities for citizens to shape the nation’s
laws and policies. There are pluses and minuses in having the governed influence
more directly the work of the governors. As Professor Robert Dahl, the Yale
political scientist, stated:
The increase in direct communication between citizens and political leaders
is not, in my view, inherently unhealthy or undesirable. On the contrary, it could
mark an important stage in the development of a political system that provides
citizens with a greater range of opportunities for participating effectively in
important decisions that bear heavily on their lives[,] which is presumably one
of the major justifications for democracy. But unless the citizens who influence
government because of their special opportunities for direct communication are
also able to understand how policy proposals bear on their own interests, and are
reasonably representative of all citizens, the result of more direct communication
will not be to strengthen democracy but to create a pseudo-democratic facade on
a process manipulated by political leaders to achieve their own agendas.70
The Founding Fathers deliberately created representative government and not
a direct democracy. As James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10, representative
government enlarges and refines “public views by passing them through the medium
of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their
country ....” Or as former Speaker Gingrich told one of his college classes: “Direct
democracy says, Okay, how do we feel this week? We all raise our hand. Let’s rush
off and do it. The concept of republican representation ... is you [elect] somebody
who you send to a central place.... They, by definition, learn things you don’t learn,
because you don’t want to — you want to be able to live your life. They are
supposed to use their judgment to represent you.... [The Founders] feared the passion
of the moment.”71
Yogi Berra, the well-known former Yankee baseball player, is purported to have
said, “Prediction is very hard, especially when it’s about the future.” Nonetheless,
as the nation’s populace continues to become more and better educated and as new
communications technologies pervade society, it is likely that the American
constitutional system will evolve to combine representative government with more
direct policy-influencing participation by “We the People.”
69 (...continued)
2007, p. 18.
70 Robert A. Dahl, “Americans Struggle To Cope With a New Political Order That Works
in Opaque and Mysterious Ways,” Public Affairs Report, Institute of Governmental Studies,
University of California, Berkeley, September 1993, p. 5.
71 Norman Ornstein and Amy Schenkenberg, “The Promise and Perils of CyberDemocracy,”
The American Enterprise, March/April 1996, p. 54.