While much of the discussion centered on best practices and ideas around (what seemed to me to be) more traditional advocacy, I tried to add some of my thoughts on what might make for more effective non-traditional advocacy and outreach. Speaking in public is always useful exercise for me, and, as is often the case, my thoughts are better organized after speaking than before.

My initial thesis was that the form of our advocacy is determined by the form of our awareness, and that the Sunlight Foundation, by extending the reach of our awareness of Congress, is broadening the field of advocacy opportunities possible for both the public and for traditional advocacy organizations.

Sunlight grantees, and other similarly minded folks engaged in entrepreneurial political Web design are enabling these opportunities to flourish, and Congress is adapting, both as in terms of staff, and as a technological institution.

My advice for advocacy groups could probably be summed up in a few brief points:

• Simply overloading Congress with email has an upper limit of effectiveness, overloading members of advocacy organizations with similarly excessive appeals has similarly diminishing effectiveness.
• While re-imagining advocacy is unlikely to replace email anytime soon (as many prefer it when offered alternatives), adding other features to advocacy methods will increase effectiveness (retention, appeal, impact, ability to get attention from Congress)
• To best affect a legislative information ecology, you should be a part of it.
• This means taking advantage of Congressional data sources, being databases like opensecrets or opencongress, legislative support agency publications (like CBO, GAO, or CRS), or committee reports. These publications take immense staff effort to create, and they probably get some satisfaction out of people actually reading them.
• Members of Congress can’t ask you to do their work for them, but, if you’re interested in getting their attention, there’s nothing to stop you from doing it anyway. In other words, you can write legislation, read the House or Senate rules, suggest questions for a committee hearing, or outline arguments or messaging. If someone was trying to do your job for you online, wouldn’t you check to see how well they were doing?
• Blog Ads are a massively under-appreciated way of reaching specific and involved constituency groups, and well worth looking into. They’re also very very cheap when compared to advertising alternatives.
• By asking your members to engage with the substance of Congress (and helping them to do so), they’ll more likely be viewed as relevant, and likely to enforce political consequences reinforce good or bad decisions.

For a little more detail on the foundations of that relationship in terms of oversight, here are two recent CRS reports on Inspectors General, one about the offices’ history and statutory basis, and one about their independence and legal reform.

This report, released August 14th, is specifically about H.R. 3162.

The other document is a CRS report from August 7th on Medicaid, SCHIP, and FY2008 issues.

Documents from OpenCRS.com, as usual.

First, a report summarizing lobbying reform measures:

Significant changes were made by Congress to the current lobbying laws, and to internal House and Senate rules on ethics and procedures, by the passage of S. 1, 110th Congress, and the adoption of H.Res. 6, 110th Congress. In the face of mounting public and congressional concern over allegations and convictions of certain lobbyists and public officials in a burgeoning “lobbying and gift” scandal, and with a recognition of legitimate concerns over undue influence and access of certain special interests to public officials, Congress has adopted stricter rules, regulations, and laws attempting to address these issues. This report examines the changes made to law and congressional rule in S. 1, 110th Congress, and changes adopted to internal House rules earlier in the Congress in H.Res. 6.

The other report is a brand new analysis of Iraq: Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security.:

Operation Iraqi Freedom overthrew Saddam Hussein’s regime, but much of Iraq remains violent because of Sunni Arab resentment and a related insurgency, compounded by Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence that, in the judgment of many, constitutes a “civil war.” Mounting U.S. casualties and financial costs — without dramatic improvements in levels of violence or clear movement toward national political reconciliation among Iraq’s major communities — have intensified a debate within the United States over whether to reduce U.S. involvement without completely accomplishing initial U.S. goals. President Bush announced a new strategy on January 10, 2007 (“New Way Forward”) consisting of deployment of an additional 28,500 U.S. forces (“troop surge”) to help stabilize Baghdad and restive Anbar Province. The strategy is intended to provide security conditions conducive to Iraqi government action on a series of key reconciliation initiatives that are viewed as “benchmarks” of political progress.

A number of outside entities, such as the Sunlight Foundation, [http://www.sunlightfoundation.com], strive to promote more transparency of and accessibility to the legislative branch by the citizenry… The Sunlight Foundation, in May 2007, issued its “Open House Project” report containing 10 ways to strengthen the sharing of information between Congress and lawmakers’ constituents. Two examples: require House committees to place promptly online the transcripts of their proceedings and make available to the public over the Internet broadcast-quality video of House and Senate floor activity and all committee hearings…

I’m very pleased that our analysis and suggestions have been welcomed by Congress; and now having their non-partisan research arm cite our analysis in a description of the current state of Congress and the Internet shows that our work is being taken seriously.

This wasn’t ever really in doubt, given the welcome our work received from leadership in both parties, and the amount of inquiries we’ve received from technical staff thoughout the House and legislative support agencies.

Part of the reason that this particular report was so striking to me is probably personal; it was the accessible work of the author of this report, Walter Oleszek, that helped to get me up to a passing competence in understanding our government, so I could start to meaningfully research its exposure from the perspective of a private citizen online. I can think of several conversations last November and December that I wouldn’t have been prepared for if it weren’t for Congressional Procedures and the Policy Process and Congress and Its Members. (Both books written or edited by Oleszek.) (More background on my history in getting involved in this project can be found here.)
That our efforts through the Open House Project have become worthy of congressional citation in such a short time brings the process full circle for me, and demonstrates the constructive potential of collaborative projects and public deliberation.

The rest of this report is absolutely worth reading, especially for its historical perspective on democracy adjusting to advances in communications and computer technology, and also for its spirited defense of republican democracy in the face of such a direct medium.

This Tuesday I’m looking at two CRS reports about Congress, Information Technology, and the Internet.

First is a new report called Congress and the Internet: Highlights, which is a great overview of technology in Congress, and also of a sort of administrative view of technological transformation and its likely effects on policy. It ends with a defense of representative democracy, with a triple-threat of quotes from the Federalist Papers, Newt Gingrich, and Yogi Berra. A fascinating read.

The other report I’ve posted about before, but there is a more recent version now available, about House IT issues, dissecting the technological and administrative structure of House IT resources.

Provided by Open CRS.

Most people probably have at least a solid idea of the financial mechanisms he’s imploring Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to control. For a reliable and accessible review of some basic governmental controls of financial markets, the best source, as usual, is the Congressional Research Service…

This report details the Federal Reserve system:

In 1913, Congress created the Federal Reserve System to serve as the central bank for the United States. The Federal Reserve formulates the nation’s monetary policy, supervises and regulates banks, and provides a variety of financial services to depository financial institutions and the federal government. The System comprises three major components, the Board of Governors, a network of 12 Federal Reserve Banks, and member banks. Congress created the Federal Reserve as an independent agency to enable the central bank to carry out its responsibilities protected from excessive political and private pressures…

For the other part of the equation, the “subprime” mortgages, whose purported effects the Fed is being asked to control, you could see this recent report, entitled Subprime Mortgages: Primer on Current Lending and Foreclosure Issues.

Subprime mortgages are loans extended to borrowers with weak credit profiles. Subprime mortgages entail higher risk of delinquency and default. Recent increases in subprime borrower foreclosures and lender bankruptcies have prompted concerns that some lenders’ underwriting guidelines are too loose and that some borrowers may not have fully understood the risks of the mortgage products they chose. Regulatory agencies are revisiting the guidance they provide lenders and are reevaluating required disclosures to consumers. In addition, Congress is holding hearings on the subject and may consider consumer protection legislation.

Both the government and the issues it deals with are more accessible when you’ve got access to the research Congress relies on to be reliably aware.