Leading the Free World, Following the Computer Nerds

I was amazed when listening to and reading the information that Dr. Johnson provided us last week. Seeing that Congress was so far behind in the online arena as it developed was strange. However, it is now clear just how powerful email has become to members of Congress. The form emails that can be sent to Congress and the filtering of important and unimportant email is just a small signal of how the new media has advanced to a level of normalcy. When I worked in the KY state legislature last year, we used to receive stacks of hundreds of "Green Slips." These slips were emails that had been sent by citizens, constituent or not. However, by the end of my tenure, the IT staff had created filters so that the members only received those emails from their constituents. Email is mainstream, and Congress has finally caught up with America.