The Emerging Cyber Legislature
AFI/ASI Joint Meeting
Washington, DC
Thursday, December 14, 2000
Sponsors: Legislative
Effectiveness Committee & Communications
and Information Technology Committee
| Meeting Session: |
The Emerging Cyber Legislature |
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| Overview & Presenters: |
This session described legislative use of Internet
web sites, e-mail, web streaming and computer conferencing.
Moderator:
Senator Bob Jauch, Wisconsin
Speakers:
Senator Steve Kelley, Minnesota
Butch Speer, Clerk of the House, Louisiana
Evan Goldberg, Chief of Staff to Senator Bowen, California
Chuck Finn, Professor, Empire State College, New York
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| Summary: |
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Senator Bob Jauch introduced the panel and noted the increased expectations
on legislators regarding e-mail and web sites. He noted that one California
legislator gets up to 400 e-mails a day. This has opened a challenge to
legislators, but it will be an opportunity to help the people become more
knowledgeable about the process.
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Evan Goldberg subbed for his boss, Senator Debra Bowen, who is dealing
with California's energy crisis. He suggested the "mom" test for setting
up your web site. Your mom ought to be able to access and use your web
site. It can be sophisticated but it has to be easy to use. Also you should
view your web page as a portal, as many people will use you as their only
entry into government. You should provide links to local government and
state agencies. He also talked about automatic response messages and the
need to remember that you will receive multiple e-mails from individual
constituents. Finally, you've got to keep your page up to date or all of
the information will lose credibility.
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Senator Kelley talked about the variety of tools available to legislators,
with the cost of those tools going down and the quality going up. He particularly
noted desktop publishing, with the ease of doing quality newsletters and
reports. He mentioned that legislatures could use streaming video on the
Internet in a way that makes the session interactive and could provide
greater explanation and context. Regarding web sites, he noted the value
of using humor and the need to write for a younger, more sophisticated
audience.
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Butch Speer described the Louisiana House experience with purchasing laptops
for all the members. From the beginning, members were given as broad an
application as possible, including access to e-mail and the Internet. In
terms of the impact of laptops on deliberation, Butch said that you've
got to look at the culture of your legislative body. The Louisiana House
is a hectic, raucous body, so there was no worry about limiting e-mail
and Internet access on the floor. As to the issue of who has the wealth
to buy computers and gain greater access to legislative activities, Butch
thinks that any step to open the process up to the next citizen is a step
in the right direction.
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Professor Finn described a number of cautions and concerns about information
technology and its impact on the legislature. The improvements in technology
may cause more meetings to be held with videoconferencing, but much is
lost when you're not in the room. Technology may increase the power of
the executive branch, at the expense of the legislature. The current technology
is fragile, often failing on its own or through human error. E-mail and
its relative anonymity may result in increased mean-spiritedness in discourse.
We can reach more people, but for what purpose? Legislatures are not in
a position to compete with Hollywood in terms of production. He stressed
the legislatures are very different from business and that they have to
concentrate on answering certain key questions:
What are our values?
How does technology serve those values?
Are we clear about the differences between business and governance?
How do we level the playing field so that we don't have a digital divide
based on class?
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