Hearings of the Committee on Rules
Friday, July 16, 1999
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 11 a.m. in Room H-313, The Capitol, Hon. David Dreier [chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Dreier, Goss, Sessions, Reynolds, and Moakley.
The Chairman. The Rules Committee hearing will come to order. I am very pleased to welcome all of you to our hearing today on legislating in the Information Age. It is, as you can see by the equipment, a wired, interactive hearing involving remote participation from three State legislatures.
The purpose of this hearing is to examine how State legislatures are using information technology to help facilitate the legislative process. During the 1999 legislative session, 29 State bodies provided members with laptop PC access in the chamber, and many of the States provided members both e-mail and Internet access while in session. Specifically, we will take a look at how this technology can be adopted by the House of Representatives in a responsible way.
Congress is not a one-dimensional institution. It has many functions and responsibilities among them to deliberate, to legislate, to educate, to communicate, and as we discussed here yesterday, to oversee the operations of the government. Each of these functions and responsibilities is affected differently by institutional change.
Where technology may improve the efficiency of Congress' internal operations and enhance our ability to publish documents, track legislation, and communicate with constituents and with each other, it may have detrimental effects on our legislative responsibilities.
In 1996, I became concerned that Congress was moving rapidly toward the Information Age without having a full appreciation of how these technologies might impact the legislative process. So I established the 21st Century Congress project to assess the potenure technology utilization on the legislative process and to recommend proposals for change.
This will be the third hearing we have had to examine the impact of technology on decision-making and legislating. In our 1996 hearing, we combined videoconferencing with television, e-mail, and the Internet to create the first interactive congressional hearing.
I should say parenthetically that I am told the equipment is much, much better today than it was probably yesterday, but certainly better than it was 3 years ago. While people watched us on C-SPAN, they were invited to read the prepared testimony on our Web site and then e-mail questions that I read to the witnesses that we had.
All of our witnesses today have been actively involved in the transformation of their respective State legislatures through the use of technology, and they have a great deal of experience in the issue of how and why this technology has been applied. Before introducing them, however, I would like to call on my friend from South Boston, one of my high-tech gurus, Mr. Moakley.
Mr. Moakley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As one who is still trying to figure out how the crystal radio works, there are some days that the technological revolution makes me just shake my head in amazement at what people can actually bring to life these days with the computer, satellite, and a little jolt of electricity.
Technology saves us a lot of time. It saves us a lot of money. It makes us more efficient. But it also has the potential to separate us from one another. In terms of the Congress, it gives us information at the touch of a button that we used to have to dig through dusty Congressional Records to find. It enables us to admire our Chairman David Dreier's state-of-the-art Web page with just a point of the mouse. It enables Members to speak on cell phones while on the House floor, which is a violation of the law.
The Chairman. We are addressing that one. We are dealing with that one.
Mr. Moakley. And it enables the American public at least, though, with access to a computer, to get copies of the rules of the committee Web site just minutes after we report them out.
But all the miraculous developments aside, Mr. Chairman, technology has its downside. It speeds up the pace of day-to-day business to the point where people feel obliged to work as quickly as they can to reload a Web page. Most importantly, it separates us from our neighbors and many times it depersonalizes American life. That is where I believe technology's greatest limits lie, particularly as they pertain to the institution of Congress.
Two hundred years ago our Founding Fathers created the Congress to be the ultimate deliberate democracy. In fact, of the three nationally elected branches, only the House was directly elected by the people, at least at that time. And James Madison in "The Federalist" said, This House in its legislative capacity must exercise its reason, it must -- deliberation is implied in legislation.
The House was reallrepresentatives of the people to deliberate. Nowhere else in the country can you see so many individuals meet in one place who simultaneously maintain their geographic identity to another place.
It is that face-to-face, Mr. Chairman, that makes the United States House of Representatives unique, that enables us to work together for the betterment of the entire country, that softens the too often harsh edge of partisan rancorous debate. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines Congress as the actor of our action of coming together and meeting.
I would submit, as marvelous as technology is, sometimes something is lost over the wires that just cannot be regained without some good, old-fashioned coming together and meeting.
As much as I hate to admit it, I was here before the House proceedings were televised. I can tell you that Speaker O'Neill wanted to make sure that we thought hard and long about the ramifications before we made such a huge, but bipartisan change to the institution. And despite the hours upon hours that we spent discussing televised proceedings, we still didn't predict some of the huge changes that eventually took place right here in the Capitol.
But one thing for sure, we will never go back, and even though the quality of the House deliberations, I feel, has declined somewhat as members address their comments more to the television audience and less to each other, the televised House floor is here to stay.
The institution of Congress is more than just these walls that surround us. It is a human institution made up of 435 very different individuals with very different opinions, getting together to convince one another that their way is right. So I would say to my colleagues, as we begin these deliberations on the integration of technology into the Congress as we know it, tread lightly. Two hundred years of the greatest legislative body in the world rests upon your shoulders.
Mr. Chairman, I think it is very ironic that at this timvancing onto this type of stage that one of the Members who was very instrumental in bringing us to where we are, the Honorable George Brown of California, just died last night. And we are going to miss him sorely not for only his action here, but his actions on so many, many other avenues here in the House of Representatives.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Let me, first of all, say before you mentioned the death of our very good friend and the colleague with whom I shared representation of the inland empire of California, George Brown, I wanted to say I totally concur with your statement. I think it was an excellent statement, and it is a challenge that I have regularly been putting forward to people in the high-tech industry because, as you know, I take pride in being an institutionalist. I happen to love this institution; and it is one of the reasons I serve -- all of us serve -- on this committee, because of our reverence for the greatest deliberative body known to man. And to maintain that deliberation while, at the same time, we move into the 21st century is a challenge and that is the reason we are sitting here today. So I thank you for that.
And I also thank you for mentioning the former chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Science, George Brown, who did -- he was one of the greatest innovators in this area and when we last had our committee hearing on the one that I described in my statement with C-SPAN, e-mail and all, we did it in the Science Committee room where George then was ranking minority member. So thank you very much for that.
And now I would like to call on my friend from Florida, Mr. Goss.
Mr. Goss. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry to hear about George Brown. I didn't know that.
The Chairman. He died earlier this morning.
Mr. Goss. He certainly did make a contribution, and I am pleased you are carrying it on.
I think if you study the recent history of information, it goes from not enough information to untimely information, information you get after the fact to, all of a sudden, an avalanche of information that led to information overload, which is sort of where it has been in my office for quite a while.
And now I think we are right on the brink of information warfare, and I say this as chairman of the Intelligence Committee with a little bit of tongue in cheek, but I do believe that things like calculated disinformation and misinformation, which have been part of psychological warfare for centuries, are the kinds of things we are going to have to deal with.
We have been talking about spin in a lot of Washington, D.C.; and when is spin spin and when is it beyond spin? Those kinds of questions, I think, we are going to have to take up. I think the people who are going to do the best in this are the people with the best filters, screening the nuggets; and this brings me to one of my favorite subjects these days, which is encryption.
I hope in the process of this discussion, we will talk about how do you protect the sanctity of some of the transmissions that go on, using these new technologies, because clearly there are discussions that probably should be held closely before they are released publicly. There is nothing sinister in this. It is like playing a good game of poker. You don't show all your hand up front if you want to win. So I think there is a lot of stuff like that out there to consider.
I congratulate you, Mr. Dreier, for bringing this forward, giving us that opportunity.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Goss.
Let me say that we have this wonderful technology which will allow us to now call and for our friends, who are joining us around the country, to hear through this little microphone right here the words of wisdom that the gentleman from Buffalo, New York, Mr. Reynolds, might offer us.
Mr. Reynolds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Moakley indicated C-SPAN wasn't here. I was afraid he was going to say television wasn't invented when he first started serving here. As a former member of the --
Mr. Moakley. Not too far on.
Mr. Reynolds. As a former member of the State legislature, I look forward to the information that is coming today, and the testimony; and as a Member of Congress, I know it will be very useful for us not only in the Rules Committee, but for the House of Representatives as a whole.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Now, let's see if this thing actually works. We just so far have been talking amongst ourselves. We know that we are not being carried on C-SPAN, but we do have audiences around the country, and I see in the lower left box here our first witness who is State Senator Steve Kelley from Minnesota. He was a two-term State house member and is in his first term as a State senator. He was a member of the Information Technology Ad Hoc Committee, the Intergovernmental Information Systems Advisory Council and the Y2K Ad Hoc Task Force.
It may also be noted that in 1996 when the committee conducted its first videoconference hearing, we had Mr. Patrick Flavin, the Secretary of the Minnesota State Senate, who was our guest then.
So Steve, having just met you in person a couple of days ago, it is nice to welcome you and to say you look great both in person and on television.
STATEMENT OF HONORABLE STEVE KELLEY, STATE SENATOR, STATE OF MINNESOTA
Mr. Kelley. Mr. Chairman, I appreciated the opportunity to actually meet you in the flesh before we did this discussion and to chat with members of your staff regarding your goals in this hearing. I was hoping to be able to provide a demonstration of the senate floor system, but unfortunately the gremlins got into the system before we could get that cleared up. So I will just describe how we use our laptops in the Minnesota senate and then talk a little bit about my perceptions of how the use of the technology affects our interaction with citizens.
The senate information system enables us to have access to the senate agenda. From the senate agenda page on an Internet base page, we can get to the text of legislation under consideration. During the last day of our session in May of this year, we had a 632-page conference committee report on our health and human services bill. That was coming in at about 10:00 at night and our deadline, constitutional deadline for adjournment was midnight. If we had waited to print that entire 632-page conference committee report for all of the members, we might not have been able to consider it prior to the deadline. Instead, we printed a few copies for our formal and historical record and then relied on the laptops to provide access to the written electronic version of that bill for consideration for final passage. We found out later it saved us about $2,000 in printing costs not to have printed copies for everybody.
We also have tools that enable us to look at amendments at the same time that we are considering a bill, and we can match the language in the amendment to the place in the bill where it belongs. I am looking to the future when someone figures out how to actually put the language of the amendment in the bill perhaps using different colored text so as to make it easier for all of us to figure out what the amendment proposes to do.
We have these tools available to us. One of the best things about the system is that the same tools are available to citizens; at the same time that we are considering amendments on the floor, those amendments are available on the Internet so that someone watching our proceedings on cable TV can see the text of what we are considering.
One of the problems that I noted, that was apparent when I visited your committee room on Wednesday, was that in an effort to preserve the historical integrity of the Capitol, you don't have permanent fixtures of electronic equipment in the hearing room and that is one of the problems that we face in the Minnesota senate, that our hearing rooms that are in the State capitol don't have the same degree of access that we have on the senate floor to the Web and to power for the laptops. So when I am attending a committee hearing, I do feel the absence of that technology when I am listening to witnesses, because there are occasions when I would like to look up data relevant to the witnesses' testimony, perhaps challenge or test the witnesses' ideas against an independent source of data that I could get in real time.
I think one of the most important prospects for this technology is its effect on the role of citizens, and I respect the concerns expressed by the members about the technology and its impact on the deliberations of the House of Representatives or the United States Senate. But it appears to me that the role technology can play is to level the role of citizens compared to the folks who have more resources to apply to the legislative process.
A citizen now watching our proceedings on cable TV can send an e-mail, and if legislatures are on-line, I get a warning that an e-mail message is coming in to me, and so I get y constituents think in real time in time to affect the result of our debate.
Now, there are risks to that, because lobbyists could do that too, but at least the way things work in the Minnesota senate, the lobbyists outside our door send in notes from time to time with their views on things. That is something that they and their clients can afford to do. This technology enables the average citizen to have the same kind of access to a representative or senator that lobbyists have had in the past. I think that is a powerful possibility -- potential for this technology.
It also -- as Congress has been trying to do, even without the televised capacities, the access to the Web gives citizens more information. One of the interesting observations I picked up in trying to gather information for this hearing was that our senate information office, which has been responsible for sending out information about bills and things like that used to get 50 to 100 requests for copies of bills a day.
Now they are fulfilling 10 requests a day. When people call, they are often referred to the Web as a place to access the bills. But that doesn't necessarily mean their work load has gone down, because now citizens are calling up and saying, okay, we saw this on the Web. We saw the engrossed version of the bill, the version that has the amendments made in committee, incorporated into it. Explain where it is in the process to us, explain what we can do now to affect the outcome of this legislation.
So the complexity of the information citizens are looking for is changing as a result of the availability of the basic legislation information on the Web. And it is something that I found -- I have an interest in telecommunications and went looking for a markup on the Internet of the Tax Freedom Act. I knew it had been marked up, but I could not get easy access to it on Thomas.
My understanding is some committees do provide the committee markups on their own sites, but perhaps one improvement to the Thomas site would be to make sure citizens get access to those intervening steps in the legislative process.
With all due respect for the concerns that have been expressed, I think it is important for legislative leaders in Congress and the State legislatures to provide leadership in the use of technology. We have so many young people for whom this is just a fact of life, and their view that we get it is going to be affected by the extent to which we feel comfortable with the technology.
I think it is also important that even though there is a risk of legislative o to find ways to tap into the authentic voice of our citizens without being insulated from that by staff or by other mediating influences. And I know, especially in Congress, the flood of commentary that comes in from constituents would be overwhelming.
But I think some way needs to be found and there are some encouraging signs, for example, the Marco Foundation with Benjamin Barber at Rutgers University and the Yale Law School are working on a site that would provide a format for deliberation among citizens, and I think perhaps it would be a good idea for all of us, at whatever level of legislative representation, to participate in those on-line forums. I know I found it useful in engaging citizens in the deliberative process with me, and I hope all members of legislature or of Congress will find ways to engage in the same thing.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee for this opportunity
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Kelley. We appreciate your being here. I know you are going to stick with us because we do want to have -- we do have a number of questions that we are going to pose.
Our next witness is Mr. Tom Tedcastle. He is the General Counsel for the Florida House of Representatives. He has served as the Director of the House Rules Committee and has played an active role in Florida's technological advancements.
Nice to have you, Mr. Tedcastle, and we look forward to your statement.
STATEMENT OF TOM TEDCASTLE, GENERAL COUNSEL, FLORIDA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND FORMER DIRECTOR, HOUSE RULES AND CALENDAR COMMITTEE
Mr. Tedcastle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. Good morning. As the chairman said, I am presently the General Counsel of the Florida House of Representatives and formerly have served as Director of the House Rules Committee. I began my process with the floor and the House, as far as technology goes, in 1991 when I was then assigned to the speaker of the house and assisted in automating our house chamber. I am not an expert in technology and don't claim to be. I was used instead as a person to give, shall we say, political insight as to how technology could be used without disrupting the house process and traditions of the house, and so I will be speaking primarily from that perspective.
The Florida House of Representatives does consider itself to be a pioneer in bringing automation to the legislative process. In 1991, primarily in response to concern that members were being asked to vote on measures they had never had the opportunity to read, the speaker directed that a computer terminal be placed at each member's desk on the chamber floor so that amendments could be displayed and the research documents prepared by committee staff would be available for their perusal. We have used this opportunity, as well, to provide members with the opportunity to message between each other, and in the hope that members would remain in their seats and we could reduce the amount of noise on the house floor. I will tell you, we were successful in providing more information to members, but not particularly successful in improving the dec
The introduction of technology on the floor has required some changes in our role and in the processes that we follow on the floor, particularly in respect to consideration of bills. Honestly, simply putting computer screens on members' desks was going to serve little purpose if members continued to file handwritten amendments, which had been the practice in Florida for decades. While it seemed a rather simple thing to tell members they had to put these things in computer technology, it was technologically easy to do, but politically it was difficult to sell to the members who were doing it otherwise. However, with the leadership of the speaker and a few other members, after about 3 weeks of rather heavy arm-twisting, the members agreed they would try it on a trial basis for the first session.
By the end of that first session, not only had the members accepted it, every other change we have made since then has been very easy to accomplish. As a matter of fact, by the end of that first session, we had adopted a rule change which required that all amendments be filed 2 hours prior to the session.
After we had done that, however, we discovered that that did not provide adequate information to the public; while it may have provided it to the members, it did not provide it to the public. So within a couple of years, the members, without objection, agreed to extend that filing deadline to 4:00 p.m. the day preceding the day on which a bill would be considered.
Providing electronic access to amendments to the members has the additional benefit of speeding up our process. Members frequently file multiple amendments to the same bill and often get lost as to which amendment is being considered. By having the amendment on the screen in front of them, they know which amendment to describe. Prior to doing this, we often found we had to go back and reconsider the adoption of amendments which had been incorrectly described because the member thought they were describing a different amendment than was actually before the House. Having been able to avoid that process has in fact helped us considerably.
In addition to providing access to amendments on the floor, they are also provided to each of the members in their office and around the State so that, in fact, they can review them before they ever come on the House -- to the House floor. We will soon be upgrading our system to providing even greater access on amendments to the public in advance.
We anticipate within a couple of years being able to post all amendments to the Internet the moment they are filed, which would give significant public access.
Requiring an early filing deadline for amendments has also required earlier decision-making on the setting of the daily calendar and early distribution of calendars. Since we have required members to file amendments by 4:00 the day before a bill is heard, we now require that the calendar be printed generally 2 days prior to the house floor actually considering legislation, to give the members time to actually consider what amendments they may wish to file.
I will tell you, this is a change for which the legislature has received considerable praise from the media, from the public, and actually from the members themselves as they have gotten used to it. It has also proven helpful to the sponsors of legislation by giving them more time to know that they need to be prepared to provide their -- to present their legislation on the house floor.
As I mentioned previously, we also provided messaging capabilities in an effort to reduce noise and otherwise improve decorum on the floor. For two major reasons, this proved less successful. First, under Florida's public records law, any message sent over the e-mail is archived and made available to the public. Obviously, in a political environment, many of the messages members might send to each other on legislation are of a political nature and are intended to be kept confidential. We had to let the members know that if they put this in electronic means, it would be public, and so their use of that system became almost zero.
Secondly, our chamber is designed such that the media gallery is behind the chamber and it is elevated. We discovered -- fortunately, one of the members of the media alerted us that by using their zoom lenses on their cameras they could read the computer screen of every member on the floor.
This came to my attention when one of the members of the media came and let me know that one member had sent a message to another member saying less than kind things about the intellect of someone who was debating a bill on the floor. As a result, we removed that messaging capability and generally only let members send hand messages such as, the minority leader recommends a vote of no or yes on this piece of legislation.
Because the use of computers by members of the legislature in 1991 had been relatively rare, when we first automated the House chamber, we selected technology that required little or no knowledge or effort. Rather than requiring the use of a key board, we selected touch screens for the amendment display system. By simply touching the screen, members were able to generate a list of amendments by bill number on the screen and could select any one they wished to read. If no particular amendment was selected, the screen would default to the amendment which was then pending or the one which had been most recently considered.
Actually, members could have use of that system with never actually having to touch a computer.
Members could also use the touch screen, however, to select research documents which analyze legislation that was on the calendar that day. The computers were turned on from a central location point and turned off at the end of each session, so members didn't even have to know how to turn on or off a computer. While some members were reluctant to use the system, every member of the House was using it by the end of the first session. We also noted that the user-friendly introduction to technology has resulted in most members wanting to use other programs in the daily operation of their office.
Because our members are not in Tallahassee most of the year, much of the communication between legislatures is now done by electronic means. More than half of the members submit, for instance, their request for bill drafting by e-mail, and we advise them of what is going on with those drafts in the same way.
Unfortunately, our drafting system is rather antiquated in this State and does not lend itself to ease of communication. We cannot send drafts of legislation by e-mail to our members; we have to fax them. We are presently exploring, along with the National Conference of State Legislatures, a new system of drafting which would permit us to do it by e-mail.
It also would permit us -- a new system would also permit us to post legislation more quickly to the Internet. Because we drafted a language which is not read on the Internet, we now have to convert every document before it can actually be posted, which results in about a 12-hour delay. Nonetheless, doing that, because we don't generally consider bills immediately after they are filed, has in fact proved very helpful. In fact, the public can now get a copy of any piece of legislation from any of our 120 house districts around the State at libraries, or if they happen to have a computer in their own home or in their own office. This has permitted us to reduce the number of bills we had to copy by more than 75 percent, which was a considerable cost savings to the State.
We have also established a Web page for public information known as On-line Sunshine. At this Internet site the public can receive copies of all of the calendars, our journals, and as I said, any bill that has been filed. They also can learn immediately what action has been taken on a bill in a committee or on the floor, and they can follow the bills throughout the process. We also provide information to all our members and on all people who lobby the floor and the legislature. In fact, the public expenditure reports filed by lobbyists are available to anyone who wishes to receive them over the Internet site.
Although we were pioneers in the field, other States have learned from us and have actually moved to the forefront. We are now in the process of reviewing what we do and hope in the next couple of years to be at the forefront again. The first step, we are once again redoing our house chamber technology. In fact, we are redoing our entire house chamber. If you looked at our chamber today, you would see an absolutely empty room. Notwithstanding our earlier concerns with the messaging system on the floor, our members will now have fully capable laptops at each of their desks and will be able to communicate with each other to communicate with anyone in the country via the Internet and to do research at the floor of -- on the floor of the house. We have also done four of our committee rooms, thus far, with the same technology, so members will be able to do research while they are engaged in a committee meeting or to communicate with someone who they think will be an expert in the field.
All our house voting system will be replaced with LCD panels which will permit them to be used not only for voting, but also to display amendments, drafts, redistricting maps and other similar pieces of information. Of course, as with all wonderful technology, it also poses a threat. With the ease of communication it providesolate members from the essential personal conduct both with the voters and with each other.
In an age of instant decision-making capabilities, it is often difficult to explain the importance of the deliberative process. While our installation of fully operational laptop computers will permit the members to communicate with constituents while in the house chamber, will it not also decrease the attentiveness of members to debates on the floor? With the ability of members to conduct polls reduce their taking responsibility for using their own judgments?
These concerns are hyped to some extent in a State such as ours with the advent of term limits and potential loss of institutional memory, but they are concerns even of those States that do not have term limits.
I clearly don't know the answer to these questions, but I think that each of us can work to help make sure that the answers to those questions is no. It is clear, however, that avoiding technological advances is not the way to achieve that answer. Rather, we must embrace technology and at the same time devote our resources to its implementation and to protecting the essential essence of representational democracy.
Unlike getting technology, this is not something we can outsource. There is no off-the-shelf solution. It will require commitment by every legislative body in the country, be it Federal, State or local. I believe the commitment is there, and I believe we are all committed to making sure that this happens.
I thank you for the opportunity to share my remarks with you on what we have done in Florida, and I would be happy to respond to questions whenever you might think it appropriate.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Tedcastle, for those very thoughtful remarks, and we look forward to questions.
[The statement of Mr. Tedcastle follows:]
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The Chairman. Our final witness is Mr. Steve Watson. He is the Chief Deputy Director for the Nevada Legislative Council Bureau. He has overall responsibility for the Information Systems Unit. He is very active within the National Conference of State Legislatures, presently serving as President of the National Legislative Services and Security Association and Vice Chairman for the legislature of the future task force of NCSL's Legislative Staff Coordinating Committee. So we are happy to welcome you, Mr. Watson, and look forward to your statement.
STATEMENT OF STEVE WATSON, CHIEF DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NEVADA STATE LEGISLATURE
Mr. Watson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Steve Watson, Chief Deputy Director of the Nevada Legislature, and I would like to thank you for this opportunity to share with you and the committee various technological changes that have occurred in our legislature.
As you know, the legislative process encompasses legislatures, legislative staff, lobbyists, the executive and judicial branches and the public. Nevada strives to improve the legislative process for all concerned parties through implementation of new technology each session. During the past two sessions, Nevada has automated its bill drafting system, provided wireless laptop computers for legislatures, enhanced the front desk systems of the senate and assembly, created a Web page with legislative information, including bill tracking and a means for the public to give their opinions by voting on bills over the Internet, tested a digital CD-rom recording system in the senate and assembly hearing rooms, programmed our own legislative electronic voting system in the senate and assembly, developed and installed a computer-based in-house cable TV system, installed a computer-based telephone answering and transferring system, installed an automated system to control heating and air conditioning, upgraded our security and additional monitors and card key access, installed a new computer-based fire alarm system and even put in an automated picture ID card system maintained by the legislative police. As you can tell, automation is multidimensional.
In 1991, Nevada became the first State legislature to utilize videoconferencing between our major population center in Las Vegas and the legislature in Carson City, some 450 miles apart. The public in Las Vegas was able to provide testimony during legislative hearings, just as we are doing today. In addition, during the interim, legislatures are technology without expending a lot of travel time and additional travel expenses. Through travel cost savings, the system was able to recover all its start-up costs in less than 2 years. At that time, we could use only one of our legislative hearing rooms. Today we have a centralized computer-based system that controls our in-house cable TV system, videoconferencing system and Internet sound system for all 11 legislative hearing rooms and the senate and assembly chambers. Our goal was to provide better access and legislative information to the groups I had previously mentioned. Through the use of videoconferencing, we have opened the lines of communication to those people that cannot attend legislative hearings in person. The public attendance at legislative hearings has increased. The awareness of what is taking place at the legislature has also increased through the use of audio on the Internet.
All of the legislative hearings in chamber activities are broadcast live over the Internet. We have received a large number of thank-yous for adding this service. In fact, we received one e-mail from a former State legislature that was visiting Singapore and listened to testimony from our senate finance committee over the Internet.
Another thank-you we received was from a number of press people that were able to cover more hearings because of the automation. One of your requests asked if these plans, trends and innovations mirror those of other State legislatures. I feel they do. Through organizations like the National Conference of State Legislatures and State legislative staff associations, like the National Association of Legislative Information Technology, we are able to meet with our counterparts to share ideas and discuss problem-solving solutions.
A case in point is with our new in-house cable television system. We met and visited Denny Heck, president at TVW in Olympia, Washington. He has the best in-house television system that I have seen and has been a great help in providing assistance to us.
Legislatures' reaction to automation has greatly improved over the last 2 years. While laptop computers were provided to all the legislatures during the 1997 session, only about a third were used. Since we have biennial sessions, our next session was this year and our usage increased to 95 percent. The usage went up because we listened to the legislatures of 1997 regarding their wants and needs and then made the necessary changes and enhancements. The members of the legislature have really embraced the new technologies as it helped to reduce the legislative days from over 160 in 1997 to the public mandate of a 120-day legislative session this year.
Legislatures may use their laptops anywhere within the building without having to plug them into a network as we have installed a 918 megawatt FM wireless system. The capabilities on the laptop include access to the Internet and all the bills, amendments, and resolutions, the bill tracking system, e-mail for the public, other legislatures and their secretaries' word processing; and for our finance committees, they even have the State's budget.
We also videotape all hearings and make this information available for purchase. Various legislatures have requested tapes on hearings they could not attend so they could review what took place regarding issues important to them.
The enhanced front desk operation increased the efficient use of legislative staff by reducing the amount of overtime, automated maintenance of historical reference and provided real-time updated information on bills to the public. As soon as bill information was introduced and acted on, you could find that data on our Internet site; instead of having to wait for the bill to return from the State printer the next day, you could print the bill text immediately. This improved the speed in which the committees could take action.
This also provided information to the public in a most timely manner, thereby improving communications and interactions between members and their constituents. The public perception of the Nevada legislatroved as these technological changes have been implemented. They now have total access to all legislative hearings through the Internet. They have up-to-date schedules of when hearings will start and the subject matter. Executive branch staff do not have to waste time sitting in a hearing waiting their turn. They can tell when their subject is about to be discussed and then come to the legislature.
We have also discussed providing the video portion to local access channels through the next legislative session and even put some hearings on real video over the Internet. The impact on staff resources has been rewarding. Through the successful implementation of accessible databases, in-house TV, videoconferencing and media distribution of bill information, the support staff has had more time to deal with legislator issues.
Additional staff requirements were minimal. We utilized our own information system staff to enhance the front desk system, the Internet system, and public reaction system and contracted for programming help rather than hiring a contractor to write a new system. We have tried using contractors and found this arrangement worked better.
As for the TV videoconference system, we utilized the computer system interfaced with the sound system that moves the cameras when legislators speak, thereby eliminating the need for cameramen. Everything is controlled in one central location utilizing two staff.
To minimize arguments made against the use of technology in the legislative process, the legislative commission has established a subcommittee on computer applications made up of three senators and three assemblymen. They meet quarterly to discuss, monitor and make recommendations to the staff. The current chairman is Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick. He wanted to be here, but is attending a CSG West meeting, and wanted you to know that he is very proud of the advancements the legislature has made and would like to invite you to come to Nevada and see.
While I have not covered all of our systems in detail, I would like to reserve the time for questions and general discussions, and I applaud you, Mr. Chairman, for bringing the States in and seeing what we can provide to you. Thank you again for this opportunity.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. We appreciate your effort here, Mr. Watson.
[The statement of Mr. Watson follows:]
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The Chairman. I will say that we feel very, very strongly here. In fact, I -- I think, Mr. Linder, you served in another elected office.
Mr. Linder. State legislature.
The Chairman. I will tell you, it is true I am only the only person sitting here who has not served in some other capacity although I was sophomore class president in high school, but that is the extent of my fame. Mr. Moakley was a distinguished State legislator. Mr. Linder was a State legislator; he didn't say whether he was distinguished or not. And I know that we have a former mayor here. And so we do obviously look to you all at the State level for a lot of expertise and appreciate very much the time that you put into this.
We have just about 15 minutes, and so I would like to see if we can get into an exchange. I am going to ask one question. We have several questions here that have been --
Mr. Moakley. Mr. Chairman before you start, Representative Louise Slaughter, a member of this panel, could not be here. She has a statement she would like to put in.
The Chairman. Was she a State legislator is the question. She was too?
Mr. Moakley. She was.
The Chairman. So without objection, Mrs. Slaughter's statement will appear in the record.
[The statement of Ms. Slaughter follows:]
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The Chairman. I would like to tell our audience we are all looking at television. The fact is Mr. Moakley is on his way to my hometown of Los Angeles this afternoon, where they are going to be unveiling a documentary about the role that he played as chairman of the Task Force on El Salvador, which I was a member of, dealing with the great tragedy that existed there in November of 1989; and so we look forward to that. He is going to bring us back, I hope, videotape.
Mr. Moakley. I can't promise that.
The Chairman. We are hoping to get those.
Let me just raise a question and then I want to turn it over to my colleagues. It really gets to the basic thrust of the excellent statement that Mr. Moakley had at the opening, and that is, clearly the Internet has enhanced the prospect of direct democracy. We see public opinion polls provided and we have Internet polls that are done on a regular basis; and the struggle that I regularly grapple with is the question of how we deal with participation. We obviously want to do everything we can to enhance participation, but at the same time maintaining representative government.
Edmund Burke said judgment is necessary, rather than simply ceding decisions to public opinion. And I wondered if -- and actually, you know, I would like to begin with you, Mr. Kelley, to see if you have any thoughts about this challenge that we have of dealing with direct democracy, that the computer clearly enhances the prospect, versus our need not only to deliberate, as Mr. Moakley points out, but just to maintain the representative nature that exists.
Mr. Kelley. Mr. Chairman, the issue that a Member of Congress faces is different than the one I face because of the number of constituents that you have. I have 66,000 constituents and so when an issue of controversy comes up and my constituents communicate their views on that to me, I do still have time to write back to them and say, well, what about this aspect of the argument or what about another aspect of the argument. And that -- and then if I get a response back from the constituent, I do get a real dialogue rather than an opinion poll about an issue.
And so I do think there is some value to that, and to the extent which Members of Congress, either directly or through their staff, can have that give-and-take at least with a sample of their constituents who communicate by e-mail -- I know that it is not possible to do it by all -- I think we can add to the deliberative process with citizens.
The Chairman. Let me just raise one aspect of that that I think is important to recognize. I don't want a legislative correspondent or an intern in my office engaging in representing my views in any way, and that is one of the reasons that we have a feedback on our Web page that comes in, and we then provide a hard copy response, which frankly goes through the process whereby at least my senior staff people are able to provide a response, if I am not personally doing it, because obviously they understand -- probably in many cases better than I do -- my own views, but -- so I think that that is something that we want to be careful about too.
Mr. Kelley. Mr. Chairman, there is a role here. The structured on-line dialogues are discussion forums that could assist Members of Congress in this discussion with a broader group of people. Because I agree with you completely that we do not want to have an overdependence on instant opinion polls.
I was interested to hear the comment, I think from Florida, that they have a way that citizens can vote on it. I think taking that kind of citizen response is important, but oftentimes, as you know, legislative issues can't be boiled down to a black-and-white response to a topic, and I think the Internet does provide us a way of getting at a more complex understanding if we can figure out the tools to use.
The Chairman. That is a good point.
Mr. Moakley?
Mr. Moakley. Mr. Kelley, you mentioned that the Internet has stepped up the process to the average citizen. One of the things that really concerns me about relying on computers to communicate with the public, that it can be very limiting. Computers are yet not universal, and the people who are not skilled in using the system are generally the elderly people, the minorities, those on the bottom of the social economic ladder, at least the people that many times need to be in touch with us when certain types of legislation are going through.
So how would you address that?
Mr. Kelley. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Moakley, the -- it seems to me we need to be doing what we can to encourage broader use of the technology, and I recognize there are a number of groups that have limited access so that the Internet does not substitute for other means of communication with our constituents; but I do think that because this technology will be so essential to a variety of aspects of our lives and the success of those people, that legislators, Members of Congress ought to demonstrate that they are committed to using it in some fashion, even if they also use other means of communication. And so it is communicating to those constituents that is important. But I also think that the efforts that Congress has made to expand the availability of the Internet to schools and to a variety of communities has and needs to continue.
Mr. Moakley. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Goss.
Mr. Goss. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have a specific question for the State of Florida and how well you have been able to accommodate the provisions of the sunshine law, which I know other States have in varying degrees; and it is basically the public -- this will be done in public. That would be one question.
The other question I have is for everybody who is using this process in the State legislature. Have you had any of the same kinds of problems with security in your systems that we say we see in the Pentagon, where hackers have come in, mischief-makers come in? It is discomforting, finding somebody else sending you messages or tampering with your messages, those kinds of things. Are there security provisions in those slots, any problems with those?
Let me start with Florida, Mr. Tedcastle.
Mr. Tedcastle. Thank you.
First of all, with respect to the security issue, let me say that we do have measures. I can't say they are absolute. In fact, we have been hacked once during our process. It was nothing significant; it caused us a lot of problems. But we do know that that can happen, and it is obviously a concern that requires a significant investment in security in our computer systems; and in fact, when I talked about our technology to some extent being antiquated, one of the reasons we have not been able to move forward as fast as we might wish to is because of security concerns, and we can't simply just take a product off the shelf and necessarily use it until we figure out how we put the proper security in and try to protect that.
But more importantly, your question on sunshine law and how that has come into play with our technology, I would say actually one of the reasons we have moved as far in technology as we have is to keep the spirit of the sunshine law, which is to give the public as much possible access that they might have.
Now, that being as it is, as I said earlier, because we understand that anything done electronically becomes a record as opposed to a telephone conversation, which is not, there is some hesitancy to use electronic means to make certain communications. We certainly alert all our members, when they are first elected, to the existence of this, and those that are in local government are generally told the same. But for 95 percent of the communications that legislatures and local government officials are having with each other, there really is not that concern as to whether or not the public is going to know what is being said; and therefore, I don't find that it has been a major impediment to the use of technology. But it certainly prohibits us from completely using the technology as a replacement for general conversations between people.
We, to make sure we co law, as I said, do keep copies of every message that is received electronically. We can't simply go in and delete it and have it removed from the system. It is archived for purposes which we would not otherwise do because it uses so much of the space on our system to maintain all of that. I wish that we could get rid of most of it because it really isn't of any value historically, but to make that determination is something we are not prepared to do, at least at this time.
Mr. Goss. Thank you very much. I wonder if briefly the other distinguished senator from the State of Minnesota, Senator Kelly, and Mr. Watson could respond on the security questions in their experience briefly.
Mr. Kelly. Mr. Chairman, we do have security measures in place and our head of Senate Information Systems informs me that we have not had the experience of someone hacking into our system yet.
Mr. Goss. Thank you
Mr. Watson. And Mr. Chairman, in Nevada we have separated our system where we use the Internet as one site and we created an intranet for our use inside the legislature. So when our legislators are using information, it is entirely within our intranet process, but then we have a separate server just for the Internet that we provide. So we have built that type of barrier between the two, as well as additional security that most of you know when you are building a firewall. So we took a look at it that way.
Mr. Goss. Thank you very much.
Mr. Linder. I came in late, but the one thing that concerns me, whenever we are talking about all these electronic inventions, is losing the personal touch, the opportunity to mix with each other. We could mail our votes around here I suspect, but I don't think you wind up with the legislation you get after talking to people and getting to know them. What do you think about that? Minnesota.
Mr. Kelly. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Linder, I try to look down the road at what might be coming in the future, and we are talking about Internet e-mail, but at some point in the relatively near future we are going to have the laptop-based capability to do what we are doing today and have interaction through electronic means. Whether that adds to the sense of distraction from what we are trying to do or enhances our ability to establish or maintain a personal contact with more constituents I think is up to how we decide to use it, but I do think that technology does have the potential of adding to our contact with citizens rather than detracting from them.
Mr. Linder. Thank you.
The Chairman. The other two witnesses want to comment on that at all?
Mr. Tedcastle. This is Tom Tedcastle from Florida. I have the same concerns that in fact it is probably one of the primary reasons we in Florida have gone quite slowly in moving in to doing teleconferencing for committee meetings, although we also have the constitutional concern which hasn't been answered yet as to whether our members actually have to be present in the State capitol for committee meetings, but it is our belief that at least at this point technology is not such that members can have the amount of interaction technologically that they should have to really complete the deliberative process to the extent it ought to occur. I think that technology is moving in that direction and perhaps in a few years that it would be worth pursuing.
I know some states are already doing it, particularly those states where people have to travel long distance or where making connections is not particularly easy, and we are a state that is not too far from that and probably will be considering it because of that.
But Senator Kelly said something in his presentation that I found interesting, which was basically the use of group software as the way to have a deliberative process going on with constituents over the Internet. I think a that involving people actually in a deliberative process would help them better understand what it is the legislature does, that that would have a positive impact on the legislature rather than a negative one. People who presently can't have any interaction with their legislators when they are in Tallahassee, interaction at least over the Internet or however it is, to me, would be an improvement over what they have now, which is at best hopefully catch somebody on a telephone conversation.
The Chairman. Mr. Watson.
Mr. Watson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I agree with both of the other speakers that we are very concerned with that interaction with the legislators themselves so that they can deliberate amongst themselves, but I also agree with what Mr. Tom Tedcastle said, and that is this is a means to help the public have access to the State legislature, and what we have found when we introduce the video conference system is we actually brought more people into the process, and that was our goal, was to show the people, to show the public the process and let them participate in the process and with our major metropolitan areas so far away and the rest of our area in Nevada so distant, this seemed to work very well.
On the Internet side, we have found that the public has been more interested and more interactive with our legislators, and this goes down to the school level. We had a doubling in the interaction of our local schools throughout the State just asking questions about the legislature and about bills that we are going through.
So, yes, we see the problems that technology can bring about, but we also see the advantages of getting our message out to the people and restoring the confidence back to the State legislature and to the political process that we have by opening it up and letting the people interact freely. Thank you.
The Chairman. Well, thank you very much. We have filled our allotted time of an hour, and we are about to lose our signal. Let me express my appreciation, not only to my colleagues here who have participated in this hearing but also to those from around the country who have joined in and taken the time from their schedules. From this end, I would like to thank Mike Callahan and two members of our staff, Bryan Roth and Todd Gillenwater, who helped put all the logistical stuff together to make this happen and say that as I sit here I am thinking about the hearing we had 3 years ago and the technology has improved dramatically, and you know, maybe when we do this next it will be sort of like the whole 3-D deal I went to with Arnold Schwarzenegger at Universal Studios made you all seem like you are right here, even though you are not.
But we are making tremendous strides, and we appreciate the time and effort you put into it, and frankly, if you would like to spend more time thinking about what all of us have really raised in our discussions here, maintaining the deliberative nature, the importance of personal interaction as Mr. Linder raised, and working to have representative democracies succeed, we would appreciate any input that you all would provide on that.
I don't know if any of my colleagues have any closing statements
Mr. Linder. My week would not be complete if I couldn't personally pick on Joe Moakley at least once.
The Chairman. That is right and he enjoys taking that. With that, the committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
