Cyberdemocracy

Tip O'Neill, meet Alvin Toffler.

Rick Henderson from the April 1995 issue

(Page 2 of 3)

C- SPAN, radio talk shows, e- mail, and broadcast faxes have provided massive amounts of information to anyone who wants it. They have also created a new generation of political activists. "Fifty percent of our contributors listen to talk radio at least two hours a week," says the ACU's David Keene. "Ten years ago, our [typical] member would send us $15 and say, 'Do a good job.' Now, he says, 'Tell me what I can do.'"

An early indication of the speed and power of cyberdemocracy occurred last February, during the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. A provision in the bill would have required every school district in the nation to certify all full- time teachers in the subjects they instruct. Home-schoolers--parents of the one million children who receive all their schooling at home--believed this requirement would force them to put their kids in more traditional schools. Communicating on the Internet, home- schoolers flooded Capitol Hill with hundreds of thousands of telephone calls and faxes. The onslaught of outrage forced the House to move the vote up by two weeks; by a vote of 424 to 1, it voted to strip the certification requirement from the bill.

Other cyber- battles were fought in the 103rd Congress. A barrage of letters, faxes, and telephone calls from the members of wise- use and property- rights groups prevented the National Biological Survey from being considered for a vote and the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act from being reauthorized by the 103rd Congress. (See "Bill Killers, August/September 1994.) And in September, when Congress threatened to force advocacy groups to disclose their donor lists to the Internal Revenue Service, hundreds of thousands of telephone calls and faxes from activists and trade-association members shut down the Capitol Hill switchboards and killed the lobbying bill.

Grassroots organizations have shown they can work the phone lines and fax machines to clog the Capitol Hill switchboard. But these activities represent a minuscule sample of the ways individuals and groups use infomedia. For instance:

* The National Taxpayers Union has placed its two congressional rating guides, BillTally and VoteTally, on the CompuServe electronic service. Anyone with an IBM- compatible computer can download the programs and get a detailed voting record of any member of Congress.

The BillTally guide estimates whether individual pieces of legislation will increase or decrease federal spending. VoteTally ranks members of Congress according to the net amount of spending increases or cuts they proposed during an entire session of Congress. When NTU first started tracking for BillTally in 1991, over the first nine months, members of the 102nd Congress introduced 57 bills that would reduce spending. By the end of the 103rd Congress, 638 bills that would reduce spending were pending.

Until this information went on- line, NTU promoted its ratings through direct contacts with news outlets in every congressional district. Now with CompuServe, individuals can download the entire programs or simply call up an individual legislator's rating at any time. "Incentives matter in the legislative process," says NTU Vice President Paul Hewitt. "This cold, hard data has changed the incentives for legislators and empowered the general public to [demand] spending cuts."

* Americans for Tax Reform is another active, creative user of infomedia to promote its anti-tax, anti-regulation message. It sponsors regular conference calls with members of Congress, governors, and other elected officials to explain items on the legislative agenda. ATR faxes an invitation to listen to the call to its supporters, along with leaders of other grassroots organizations and political reporters. Over the past few months, for instance, by calling an 800 number, you could hear Reps. Tim Penny (D- Minn.) and John Kasich (R- Ohio) explain the Penny- Kasich budget- cutting plan or listen to school- choice activists from Arizona and New Jersey discuss proposals in their states.

ATR President Grover Norquist appears on a weekly National Empowerment Television program, informing viewers how to contact members of Congress or talk- show hosts about different bills. The group regularly faxes notices about national and state issues to local activists, talk- show hosts, and journalists. Commercial broadcast- fax services can send a one- page document to thousands of locations, each for about the cost of a first- class stamp. As ATR's Jim Lucier points out, batch- faxing information is not only faster than relying on the Postal Service; you don't have to recruit people to stuff envelopes and lick stamps.

And ATR has begun targeting op-eds and fax notices to community newspapers that would be too small to justify traditional mail campaigns. "These are the places that print coupons for the local supermarket and write about high-school football games and the prom," Lucier says. "It's an important audience to reach."

* Activists inside the computer community have worked to make government documents available at low cost on-line. Jim Warren worked with legislative staffers to place California's public records on the Internet rather than on a separate computer system that would have cost millions of dollars to construct and maintain and would have been costly for individuals to dial up.

And individuals can now reach the Library of Congress's "Thomas" program on the Internet and download the legislative language of any bill before Congress within seconds of its being filed. New Speaker Newt Gingrich believes "Thomas" will weaken Washington lobbyists and make it tougher to pass bills that benefit narrow interests. At a January 10 conference sponsored by the Progress & Freedom Foundation, Gingrich said disseminating information in "real time" will give everyone, not just well-paid lobbyists with research staffs, access to the same information. "There's no longer an advantage to being an insider," he said, "because everyone's an insider" who's willing to get the data. ATR's Lucier says "'Thomas' lets anyone play 'Find the Pork' with their home computers."

Before "Thomas" was up and running, unless you could walk over to Capitol Hill (or pay someone to do it), it would take days to get the text of bills pending in Congress by mail. And unless you had solid contacts on Capitol Hill, forget about quickly obtaining copies of committee reports, the staff-prepared briefs that outline the projected costs and regulatory impacts of pending bills.

Organizations across the political spectrum form "working groups" to respond to legislation affecting areas as disparate as immigration, criminal sentencing, and gun laws. A few hours after a meeting ends, thousands of activists can learn by fax or e- mail what's happening in Washington and what they can do to assist in legislative battles.

And they have an impact. By raising a ruckus on the Internet, for instance, civil-
liberties groups have derailed proposals to make digital telephone communications easier for governments to wiretap. They have also caused an indefinite delay in the introduction of the Clipper Chip encryption device. Says Jim Warren, "The Net is a potent tool for enhancing citizen control over state and federal legislative activity."

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