March 13, 2006 – Page 651
Dear constituents: O-M-G, can you believe we’re halfway through the 114th Congress? I’m sending this videomail to launch my bid to keep my “seat” in the “House” in 2017 — and to tell you about some exciting changes to democracy that I sooo want to enact in the year ahead.
I put quote marks around “seat” and “House,” of course, because I hardly ever go to the Old Capitol Building anymore: Like most lawmakers, I telerepresent from home. Why go to D.C. and sit in those fusty chambers when we can cast our votes online, chat with our constituents, and webcast our committee and town hall meetings? Of course, I do go to those occasional legislative Meet Ups, where I can chill with my colleagues and, of course, our lobbyist friends.
As anyone who bookmarks my page knows, I recently got a logon to the exclusive Appropriations Forum. My password arrived just the other day and, whoa, this gives me so much more power to steer dollars to our district! You know that crumbling bridge that crosses the river into town? I used to have to spam the list administrator just to get his attention. Now we’re on each others’ buddy lists and we IM all the time. Pretty soon, I’ll be able to PayPal millions of dollars over to our Public Works folks. My Clout Index is rising!
Over the past several terms, I’ve been able to keep my Quality Ranking to at least three and a half stars. Part of my success, I think, is because I keep close tabs on the pulses of my constituents. When one of you shows up in chat rooms or blogs seeking information or complaining about something, my legislative assistants and I try to message you right away, and point you to a site that can help you — or to a group of users with like-minded rants. I try to be a good old-fashioned retail politician, pinging your MySpace pages individually, rather than Skype-spamming everyone with robocalls.
So here are some updates on issues I know you all care about:
• Iran reconstruction: Now that we’re there, I think it’s important to stick with the original plan (www.originaliranplan/bush.gov). I just sent the new Iranian president the open source code for our new electronic voting system. He says he’ll hack together a mashed up version for his country. Who says you can’t export democracy?
• Hurricane Hillary: I am heartened by the quick response to last season’s big storm in the Gulf Coast (I’ve also enjoyed our new approach of using online polling to name our seasonal storms). Yes, once again, thousands remained homeless for weeks inside the Superdome. But I’m happy to report that wi-fi access inside the stadium was up and running within hours.
• Medicare prescription drugs: It has taken 10 years, but this program is finally running more efficiently, mostly because 95 percent of the remaining senior citizen enrollees use online pharmacies and receive their denial-of-coverage letters via e-mail.
Finally, I want to tell you about some exciting legislation I am proposing along with colleagues from both sides of the virtual aisle.
As you know, the president and vice president (chelsea1980 and funtimes4pols) have made the Electronic Democracy Project a top administration priority. Voter participation has been above 80 percent ever since 2012, when we began voting online in general elections. (It certainly helped when Congress made voting mandatory for anybody who wants a broadband connection.) Federal contracting is more transparent and accountable now that eBay has taken it over. (BTW, there are only 11 hours and 7 minutes left for bidding on that space-based defense contract — and our local employer Lockheed Cisco is still in the lead!) Most importantly, when Google bought CQ, C-SPAN and the Library of Congress, everybody got instant access to everything we do.
My fellow Americans, we are ready to take the next step toward a truly representative democracy. A House of Representatives based on geography and population is an outdated, 20th century concept, as I’ve said. I am backing a constitutional amendment to instead make each congressional district represent citizens who fit into one of 435 different Voter Profiles. I’m happy to say that the federal government now has enough information on each of you to pull this off.
Using a sophisticated algorithm developed by Match.com, we’ll assign you to a virtual district based on your Web and e-mail usage, what you buy on Amazon, what news stories you forward to friends and what type of mate you have or are looking for. Then we’ll let you and others in your district choose a like-minded politician to represent you in the e-House. Your new representative will be even more tailor-made to your narrow interests than I am!
I’m sure most of you are asking: How can we trust such a system to make the right choices, and not deprive us of our rights to representation, privacy, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly? Worry not: This system will be administered by Google, the most trusted brand in organizing the world’s information. (Their motto, after all, is “Be at least slightly less evil than the other companies.”)
Well, g2g work on some constituent e-mail and do my e-vites for my next online fundraiser (www.MyRace.com). C’ya there!
Mike Mills is CQ’s executive editor for electronic publishing.






