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Government Web Sites Are Not for the Incumbents
Hal Plotkin has a column pointing out a severe deficiency in how the U.S. government handles web sites - they are often designed more to promote current office-holders than to conduct governmental affairs. The practice of using official resources for partisan political purposes is not new - the big rush actually hit about 3-4 years ago - but we could make such better use of the web, if only...
1. Minor complaint: The article headline is backwards. These sites are biased toward the incumbents, as the article notes.
2. If we want less bias, have a nonpartisan agency write the bios and update the pages. Something like the Congressional Budget Office -- not immune to politics, but one step removed from the process and beholden to no single representative.
3. Incumbents win over 90% of Congressional races and have for some time, so the bias issue really isn't all that important. There is so much inherent bias in the fact that incumbents get to do newsworthy things in front of cameras that websites don't really change anything.
4. The real scandal about government websites, especially the Congressional ones, is the almost total lack of content. The home pages should include all votes cast by the representative -- Thomas is clunky and difficult to use. As the artcile notes, it would also be nice to know when the official is up for re-election. Personally, I'd also like to see links to FEC campiagn finance reports on the same page to make correlating funding sources and voting patterns easier, but asking Congress to commit mass political suicide is probably not a realistic option.
Make cheese not war 8:)
...is designed to favour the incumbents.
The two big parties have enough funding to brainwash the masses into thinking that they are the only parties capable of winning, yet their policies differ very little.
The net effect is that by voting for either of them, you are voting for the status quo - nothing ever happens and they keep lining their pockets.
Vote for someone else. Left or right, it doesn't matter, just shake out the incumbents.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
While this is certainly an unfortunate practice, it's hardly a new one, except perhaps with regards to the internet.
One of the many benefits of incumbency is the access to government resources which can be used in functionally political ways. The most basic of these is what is known in the business as "franking," whereby congresspeople can send mail to their constituents on the public dime. In 1994, the Republicans ran on a platform of reforming the franking rules, but quickly changed their minds when they found themselves in office.
As with most problems related to political campaigning, the only real fix I see is public campaign financing. By allowing anyone, incumbent or challenger, who can demonstrate a certain threshold of public support (typically through collecting a large number of very small contributions), the advantages of incumbency, fund-raising connections, etc. can be mitigated, candidates can be free to spend their time speaking to the issues, rather than raising money, and, once elected, they won't be quite so loyal to big-money interests.
(If you live in Massachusetts, be sure to vote yes on Ballot Question 2, to preserve our Clean Elections public-financing system.)
Red All Over: Rambling Missives from an Aspiring Revolutionary
Democracy.org lets you find all your local candidates, their voting records and positions on issues, their addresses and websites, etc.
Moderation totals that amuse me for one of my posts: Flamebait=1, Insightful=2, Funny=2, Overrated=1, Underrated=1
The Web does not need to be simply another channel for PR. With Clinton-Gore the idea was partly PR but also what Mark Boncheck called Disintermediation. What we wanted to do was to have a clear channel between the politicians and the people, clear of press 'interpretation'.
The point is not that people are going to trust the politicians more than the press, they will not. However it does prevent the press from some of its wilder distortions. During the '92 campaign the media made much of 'fact checks', doing a reality check on the statements made by both sides. What they never told the people is that they relied 100% on press releases put out by the parties, this was an innovation of James Carville that the GOP quickly followed.
The point of Whitehouse.gov was that the people should have access to the same information as the journalists. That is why we put every whitehouse press release on the web site and through an email server and onto USEnet from day 1 of the administration. This was originally done at MIT and the site later moved to the EOP itself.
The two people mainly responsible for putting the government online were Gore and Gingrich. Gore genuinely believed in the Web and Internet, that is why the GOP had to invent the lie of his claiming to have invented it - to deny him the ability to discuss a major achievement.
Gingrich had a much harder challenge. The congress is divided in many ways, although the speaker controlls the house floor the committee chairs control their individual committees. Gingrich wanted the whole process of government to be transparent so the people could see what was going on. The committee chairs and the lobyists did not, any such democratising move would threaten their power. It would no longer be possible for last minute changes to be made to a bill in secret before it was rushed through committee. This is how many major legislative abuses take place. During the DMCA the lobyists for the RIAA inserted a clause to steal the returned rights of the artists. This was done behind closed doors without the knowledge of many committee members, let alone the people.
In comparison the UK hansard web site is genuinely open. The site was set up to eventually replace the printing and distribution of 'the vote' which is the collection of papers sent to MPs every day. As such the site has every bill and critically every proposed ammendment at the same time the members get it.
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Let's see. . .what CAN'T they fly Coach: the rest of us do. And as for baggage handlers, why not subject them to the joys of our new Federalized (and supposedly "Professionalized". . .) Baggage Handlers and screeners. Thay're SUPPOSEDLY there to represent us, as opposed to being the Senator from Disney or whereever.
Then again, if **I** was running things, I'd have Congresscritters and Senators living in general-issue family housing on any of the local military bases in the DC area. After all, if it's good enough for our boys and girls in uniform, it oughta be good enough for a Congressman or Senator....