Public Votes to Write the Bills

Welcome to the era of Government 2.0!

This era, conceived by the joining of a series of tubes with politicians and interested constituents, includes a few noteworthy things, all alleged to produce "transparency" and citizen involvement: There's the latest craze of PolitiTweets (just coined it... hands off). There are the ever-static Facebook Fan pages; the YouTube version of C-SPAN; and sites like Recovery.gov.

All of these tools (not at all mere distractions) purport to bring the public together with politicians for the sake of ultimate democracy. The politicos are up front with all of their dealings (sometimes in a convenient 140 characters or less). We're communicating. They're listening. Someone get me something fuzzy to hug, because I'm feeling excited.

But we want more, don't we? We don't just want to cheer our lawmakers on from the sidelines of Facebook and Twitter. We want to live in their suits and move their arms around, too. And now, because of the Internet, we can. Hoorah.

A few organizations, including The Sunlight Foundation, exist in hopes of helping society reach a point where citizens are using the Internet to get involved in government, not simply through passive support, but through active commenting and editing of legislation.

And it looks as if this idea has some support: A poll last week on Internet Evolution, taken by nearly 250 respondents, asking "Do you think legislation should be subjected to 'crowdsourcing' online before it is introduced or voted on in Congress?" showed that 62 percent of our readers believe the public "should get to preview/edit legislation." Twenty-seven percent disagree, and 11 percent don't care.
A few years ago such a poll question may have sounded like a real stretch... like, "Do you think women should use the Internet to carry their unborn babies to avoid the extra weight gain?" While that one may need some time to reach fruition, the idea of letting citizens help write the Laws o' the Land via the Web is becoming something of a reality. Or, at least, a reality to a somewhat delusional few.

In theory it sounds like a great idea. Let citizens help make the critical decisions that govern their lives, taking some of our power out of the lobbyists' hands? Great!

Of course, scratch a bit, and we uncover serious problems.

First off, putting aside the $7 billion allocated for broadband in the stimulus package, many Americans are still disadvantaged by the digital divide. As a result, they aren't always connected, nor are they necessarily among the Internet literati. So automatically this e-legislation thing leaves a portion of the country in the dark and out of the process.

Then there's the simple fact that we're not legislators. Or as j0el puts it on the message boards, "Frankly, unless one is prepared to really understand the proposals it is an abuse to just read the title and then vote."

As Greg Elin, chief evangelist at The Sunlight Foundation, stated last week, we are not quite ready for this to become a reality. In the meantime, interested parties should take advantage of sites like Thomas.gov, which publishes legislative information from the Library of Congress, and OpenCongress.org, which allows citizens to track and discuss bills.

Whether we get to a point past side conversations on the Web remains to be seen -- but before we get too excited, there's plenty to address before we risk making the legislative process worse.

? Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution
Channel: Consumer Internet, Personalization & privacy, Web 2.0
Tags: Blogs, Social Networking, Wikis