Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee,

Thank you for this unique opportunity to testify regarding the effect of information technology on the legislative process in Minnesota. Based on my conversations with your staff, I understand that you are leading the House Rules Committee in an important exploration of what technology could do to or for the United States House of Representatives and the continuous improvement of the democratic system we all prize.

Responses to Questions Posed by the Committee

On our laptops we have access to the Senate agenda and its components, including messages from the Governor. Despite our Governor’s colorful reputation, these messages are still pretty dry. The laptops provide easy access to the Senate network and to the bill tracking system maintained by the Revisor of Statutes. This year the Senate staff added the capability to call up floor amendments and view them on the same screen with the bill being debated. This technology improvement made it unnecessary to wrestle with large bill binders and multiple page amendments. I am looking forward to the time when some programming genius will enable the computer to insert the amendment language in a bill draft using different colors or some other indicator, making it easier to decipher the effect of a proposed amendment.

We still print bills and, therefore, have a traditional record for legal and historical purposes. Nonetheless, the future effects of the technology can be seen in outline. At the very end of last session, the Senate was considering the 632 page conference committee report on health and human services appropriations. If we had waited to print the total number of copies normally printed, we would likely not have passed the bill before the adjournment deadline. Instead, a few copies were printed and available for review by members who were more comfortable with paper. The majority of senators relied on the “written” copies available over the Internet and accessed by our laptops. We saved $2,000 in printing costs and a few Minnesota trees.

Like Congress, the Senate faces concerns about maintaining the historical, physical integrity of our Capitol building. Although we have been able to accommodate network technology on the floor, our hearing rooms in the Capitol have limited technology resources. In a few rooms we can assure witnesses that they can access the Internet for presentations to a committee. We do not have any rooms equipped for video interactivity. I am speaking to you from a House of Representatives hearing room which has the cameras and other tools for video conferencing.

When I am in a hearing, I often regret that I do not have access to my laptop, an Internet connection and the information resources the Internet provides. Access to the Web might enable me to better test or challenge a witness’s comments during the committee process. If I have a legal question, I still have to resort to the printed statutes in the hearing room rather than looking on the Web as I would do on the floor or in my office.

Efficiencies from use of the technology have not necessarily reduced the number of staff. We have added to the Senate technology staff. There are some areas where we may have avoided having to add support staff as a result of increased technology use.

There are effects on how staff members function. One committee administrator noted that floor sessions used to mean that while on the senate floor, the senator was not in a position to add to the staff work load. Such absences enabled productive work. Now those productive periods can easily be interrupted by a casual e-mail from the senator. Of course, other staff have the opposite challenge. They want the senator to answer more e-mails, speeding up response to the constituent and relieving some workload for the staff. E-mail notices of hearings have reduced staff time devoted to copying, stuffing and mailing paper notices.

The Senate Information Office reported that prior to the widespread availability of the Internet, they responded to 50 to 100 requests a day for copies of bills. Now they send out only 10 per day. Even though the routine requests have declined dramatically, their work load has not declined because citizens are now asking for more complex responses. The basic facts of legislative events are now available so the public is seeking an explanation of what the information means and how they can play a more effective role.

For part-time legislatures like ours, limited staff is a reality. I routinely track down information on the Web to supplement the work done by my legislative assistant and the research staff. One of my colleagues reported that she had tracked down useful witnesses by locating relevant organizations’ Web sites and sending particular organizations a request for information. E-mail technology enabled a single request to be transmitted quickly and cheaply. E-mail also enabled efficient dialogue between the member and the witness prior to the hearing. The greater availability of congressional staff may limit the information access benefits to a member of Congress.

A Few Cautions

I am a technology optimist. I still have a few cautions. The technology makes it easy for legislators to change their minds and change bills rapidly, sometimes so quickly and in such volume that citizens, even senators, can lose track of what is happening. We should impose limits on ourselves so that we don’t create a new barrier to effective citizen involvement.

We are also going to have to define the information and documents which are public or not public very carefully. In the Minnesota Senate, we had to define when an amendment can be made public on the Internet. Though an amendment might be drafted and remain on the server for days before it is offered on the floor, it is not released until a member actually offers it. In an era when the courts have ruled that electronic records are public, it could be argued that even draft documents should be accessible. We need to have deliberative space in deliberative bodies where even half-baked ideas can be drafted, mulled over and either used or not, without outside scrutiny hastening the review and reflection phase or inhibiting creative thinking.

The Role of Citizens

The Minnesota Legislature broadcasts floor sessions and some committee hearings, as does Congress. Television technology enables citizen oversight of the government in important new ways. As cameras become cheaper and smaller, it will be easier to install them in all hearing rooms. With Internet-based streaming video technology, we will not face the problem of limited channel capacity limiting our ability to transmit simultaneous hearings. The Senate has talked about this technology but has not implemented it. There will be a time when a citizen at home, work or school will use the ‘Net to look in on any congressional or legislative hearing that concerns her. She will also be able to call up stored records to view what we said and how we said it, at her convenience. The bigger challenge will be ensuring that the information is meaningful and enables her to perform her governing responsibilities.

Lawmaking bodies may have to change our procedures as well as how we report our actions to make sure citizens can understand what is happening. I think I understand the Minnesota legislative process, yet I can be stymied by the wealth of information available through Thomas. My understanding is that committee markups are not available on Thomas even though they are essential in the legislative process.

If a citizen can understand what is happening, e-mail provides an unprecedented opportunity for a citizen to have the same timeliness of response to legislative deliberations that lobbyists have had. Real time access to what lawmakers are saying and voting on plus a cheap, fast means of registering their views can add up to citizen empowerment and civic engagement if legislators are listening. If legislators don’t use the technology, they will still be insulated from their constituents by distance, time delay and the insulating effect of staff. I have trouble reading, let alone responding to, all my e-mail. For a member of Congress, there is no hope. I believe we should find a technology that enables sampling of citizen comment in real time so that citizens do have the voice they deserve. Additional steps are required so that the technology does not create just an instant opinion poll.

We should also participate in a few on-line debates or discussions where we can set an example for democratic deliberation. You may want to look at the efforts of the Markle Foundation and two academic institutions to develop a new model of on-line discussion that promotes responsible deliberations by active citizens. The URL is http://webserver.law.yale.edu/infosociety/. I have found that participating in an on-line forum was a worthwhile experience. I would like to hold an informal on-line “hearing” that would enable a real dialogue among members and witnesses but have just not put it together yet. Perhaps legislative bodies should be finding ways to host citizen-legislator dialogues on-line rather than leaving the dialogue function to others.

The use of information technology will soon be ubiquitous, especially among young people. Citizens will be looking to lawmakers for leadership. If we fail to demonstrate our grasp of the technology by actually using it to its capacity, we risk communicating to our constituents that we just don’t get it. It really is important that legislators become familiar with the new information tools for our own benefit and, more importantly, for the benefit of our constituents. We can find ways to enhance democracy and provide the kind of leadership our fellow citizens expect.

Thank you again for this opportunity. I also want to thank the technicians from the Minnesota Department of Administration and the Minnesota House of Representatives and Senate for their help in setting up this video link. I always think it should be easier but a lot of work is still necessary. I also want to thank the senators and staff of the Minnesota Senate who shared their thoughts about the effect of technology on their work. My legislative assistant Molly Moilanen was essential, as always, to the coherence of my presentation and to coordinating with your staff.