Cyberdemocracy

Tip O'Neill, meet Alvin Toffler.

Rick Henderson from the April 1995 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

But Rauch argues that technologies aren't the problem; lobbies are. He admits that the grassroots infomedia groups have been most effective in stopping intrusive legislation. But he wonders if new "veto" groups won't spring up that stop laws that roll back existing entitlements and regulations.

Such groups may emerge. Indeed, greens use electronic communications (the ECO-NET news service, for instance) extensively. But their main thrust has been extending regulation, which has recently become a legislative nonstarter. And as Paul Hewitt of the NTU points out, the
latest technologies are in the hand of younger people who are more suspicious of government entitlements than their parents. Warren agrees. "On the Net," he says, "Generation X has an equal voice to the AARP."

The coalitions that fought the Clipper Chip, the 1993 tax hikes, ClintonCare, teacher certification, and the lobbying bill were part of what ATR's Lucier calls "the leave us alone coalition." These technologies provide fast and flexible responses to government attempts to micromanage peoples' lives. Working on many fronts, individuals and groups can chip away at the centers of power in Washington.

Richard Hartman thought his family's life would return to normal after the election. Now political consultants and grassroots activists across the country want to hear how they ran an effective political- action committee out of a couple of rooms. He's planning to sponsor a seminar in Spokane in late spring or early summer to explain how they did it. "We had no long- range agenda," he says. "Everything we did was focused on getting rid of Mr. Foley." Now that Foley has become a D.C. lobbyist, the Hartmans may be able to show other activists how to give their local legislators early retirements.

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