Should Lawmakers Be Able To Hold Hearings, Debate and Vote On Legislation Virtually From Their District Offices? (thehill.com) 149
Applehu Akbar shares an old report raising a very good question for today's Congress: why not use today's videoconferencing tech to allow representatives to perform most Congressional activity from their home districts?" The ability to "work from home" would be especially beneficial during a government shutdown, like the one we're currently in, where money is tight and Congressional members are "sick and tired of Washington and don't want to show up anymore to vote." Slashdot reader Applehu Akbar writes: Because Congress people serve short terms and campaign largely on constituent service, they have to spend a large percentage of their time shuttling between home and Washington. Virtualizing most of their Washington presence would save fuel and energy while giving them more time with their constituents. In addition, there could be a long-term societal benefit in making Congress less vulnerable to lobbyist influence by keeping them out of the Beltway. Pearce told The Hill in a statement back in 2013: "Thanks to modern technology, members of Congress can debate, vote, and carry out their constitutional duties without having to leave the accountability and personal contact of their congressional districts. Keeping legislators closer to the people we represent would pull back Washington's curtain and allow constituents to see and feel, first-hand, their government at work. Corporations and government agencies use remote work technology; it's time that Congress does the same."
Um you missed something (Score:4, Insightful)
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Exactly.
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Hey, why not save money and run the courts the same way. The jury works from home, where a government agent makes sure they are 'er' safe. Your lawyer also you never see them, save money just text it in. The judge, why bother, you are already guilty, the trial a mere formality, your were born poor 'er' guilty, get used to it.
Why make you politicians appear in your houses of government and be publicly seen to be free of coercion and in a 'PUBLICLY' controlled safe environment, in front of the public, and pu
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I was going to reply about something being important about your body physically being somewhere, but your comment covers it very well, if slightly narrower than I would have framed it. :)
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The Washington Press corps aren't a watchdog. They go to the same parties as the politicians.
After last week's eruption of fake news, it's more like the 'Washington press corpse'. The public will trust news about their Congresscritters more when they're at home and being reported on by the County Catbox-Advertiser.
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I've been of a mind that all the Congress critters should be forced to wear body cameras, just like police, and for the same reason.
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How utterly comical. By who? You? Are you monitoring them? People are naive. There is no magic people/organization overseeing lobbyists. Do you think the press is? They are too busy with other things that they think is important.
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How about a compromise: 24-hour redundant surveillance of elected officials, available publicly (perhaps with a few days lag to avoid compromising security). Every word, text, fart, and impassioned moan is open to public scrutiny for the entirety of your time in office. The only exception being "closed-chamber" Congressional meetings - during which all other outside communication is still tapped for public consumption.
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They're starting to.
My suggestion was mostly in jest, but do you really doubt that public video evidence of every bribe received and lobbyist request made would at least give more honest opponents valuable political ammunition?
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Re:Wrong- slashdot shills unaccountable gov (Score:4, Interesting)
To-may-to, to-mah-to
And nobody cares, because there hasn't been a believable opportunity for change - both parties had fallen under the economic sway of many of the same people, the game was rigged, and everybody got used to just complaining about it.
But now our political parties are both seeing major upsets and instabilities forming in their power base. New and unexpected players are suddenly finding themselves in prominent positions on the national stage. Former political dropouts are starting to wake up to the fact that they're in the majority now, and can in fact make a difference.
Now, is that a momentary aberration? Or a beginning of a turning of the tide? Time will tell, but I'm hoping for the tide.
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The floor debate is BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the work is hearing testimony from the agencies they oversee which is done in sub-committee and committee. Then there is confirmation for thousands of federal executive employees which is also committee work.
And most of the work of drafting laws is done by their staffs and testimony from stakeholders to their relevant committees and sub-committees along with several congressional committees meeting to iron out language differences
The actual floor debate you fall asleep to on C-SPAN is BS and a tiny part of the process
Re:The floor debate is BS (Score:5, Insightful)
The actual floor debate you fall asleep to on C-SPAN is BS and a tiny part of the process
I disagree. The floor debate you fall asleep to on C-SPAN has nothing to do with the process. It's senators grandstanding to a camera, nothing more. To quote this New Yorker article [newyorker.com]...
In general, when senators give speeches on the floor, their colleagues aren’t around, and the two or three who might be present aren’t listening...The only people who pay attention to a speech are the Senate stenographers...The Senate chamber is an intimate room where men and women go to talk to themselves for the record.
Deals get cut in offices, legislation gets filtered by committee, votes get gathered by the whips, and nothing gets to the floor for a vote without party leader approval. Generally, the only time senators gather in the chamber is to conduct the vote. Once it's done, they vacate.
Personally, I think this process is one reason why government is so divided today. Our congressional leaders don't work together in the very chamber where they should be conducting business. There's no rapport, no discussion, no construction of trust necessary to build consensus. Since the vote is the only time -left- where they are required to gather together, I'd hate to see voting by proxy be allowed, further distancing one another apart from the process.
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Face it, the job is too big for 435 people. If you were to split the Federal budget into Representative-sized chunks (435 of them), they'd each have to figure out how to spend $30,000,000 PER DAY.
If you really want the government to be more responsive, more of it needs to be devolved to lower levels, so the number of controlling entities is in the hundreds of thousands, not hundreds....
Re:The floor debate is BS (Score:4, Insightful)
And the next Russian scandal (Score:3)
The next scandal would be the Russians or Chinese hacking a close vote.
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As these aren't secret ballots, votes can actually be verified. Even a basic solution using GPG to sign the vote would work pretty well (until they paste their secret key in a random website that asks for it).
So long as it's 100% secure comms, why not? (Score:2)
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please provide an example of a "100% secure comms" in current production.
Re:So long as it's 100% secure comms, why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
please provide an example of a "100% secure comms" in current production.
Secure voting is easy. Anonymous voting is also easy.
It is doing BOTH that is hard.
Security for congressional floor votes is easy because their votes are public knowledge.
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As opposed to Soviet plants like AOC or Palestinian plants like Tlaib? I think if hackers ran the world, we'd be a lot better off.
Don't stop there (Score:5, Interesting)
While we are at it, we should return (federal) Congressional districts back to their original size - about 30,000 citizens per Representative.
Yes, that is about 10,000 members. Impossible to do now while they all have to meet physically in a single room in DC, but trivial when their office is in the district they purport to represent.
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Well, maybe not impossible [youtube.com], but probably undesirable.
Re:Don't stop there (Score:4, Insightful)
Is 30,000 really the 'magic number'? Has any research been done on if citizen representation is improved by having 1 rep per 30,000 versus 1 rep for 300,000? Could district area/dimensions be more important than the population it contains? The real "while we're at it" should be nonpartisan redistricting, to slay the Gerrymander (which will probably require a Constitutional amendment).
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It would be good because less reason to be corrupt.
Now they go in, don't give a fuck how corrupt they are, and collect their money.
With 10,000 how many do you need to bribe, without it getting out that you are bribing lawmakers to get your bill passed?
We would end up with people wanting to do the right thing because going in to be corrupt wouldn't be worth it.
Re:Don't stop there (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, 1 per 30,000 means around 10,000 representatives. Imagine you're trying to buy out a law - you need to convince 5001 of them to swing your way. It's certainly going to be more expensive to do so - a million bucks only ends up being around $100 each. At that rate, the citizens of the district can easily buy them out. Even at $10M, that's $1000 each, still hard to buy people out.
At 1 per 300,000, that's 1000 representatives, not much different from what we have now, and still too easy to buy them out.
Maybe 1 per 30,000 people isn't enough, but the numbers are such that it seems buying out laws has gone from mere millions to a billion dollar activity.
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An interesting idea but that's not how bribery of representatives works. Even today they don't bribe them all, they bribe the influential ones. And by influential I mean the ones that are having their arses kissed the most by more junior reps looking for favours - support, jobs, inclusion on committees, even just introductions to big donors and grooming for future roles.
Having 10,000 representatives would certainly change that dynamic but I imagine they would just clump together into groups and you would be
Mixed feelings (Score:1)
While this seems like a no-brainer, there should be cause for concern. We're not even sure if we have been able to secure our elections. What happens if some one manages to fake that they are a congressman? Or a congressman realizes that his constituency doesn't like the way they voted and claims that they were hacked?
If it does become possible to secure this type of thing, why do we even need congressmen any longer? At what point does it get decided that the people themselves can vote on what they want?
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We already don't need the Senate, and there are already proposals on the table to push a constitutional amendment dissolving the senate.
We do not need a "House of Lords" in the United States.
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, yes, we most certainly do. Although the senate's one-state-two-votes rule is something of an anachronism, the primary purpose for the senate is very much still valid — putting the brakes on a fickle electorate by ensuring that no more than one third of that house can change in a single election cycle.
BTW, the person asking the original question got it very wrong. The question should not be whether lawmakers should be allowed to hold hearings, debate, and vote on legislation from their districts, but rather whether they should be required to do so.
The main problem with Washington, as far as I can tell, is that lobbyists and partisan think-tanks have amazing access to legislators, while the people in their districts have almost none. As far as I'm concerned, Congress should meet for one week at the start of each legislative year, for the opening gavel and choosing people for committees to replace folks who are stepping down or who have left Congress entirely. They should meet again for the closing gavel, followed by a holiday party at the end of the year. The rest of the time, they should be required to spend at least 90% of their days in their districts, among the people they represent.
The current situation is absolute madness, and has been for some time.
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I like a modified form of the British Parliament idea: a House of Commons (lay people, like average Joe voter), and a separate House of Lords (only replacing the Nobility with experts in various fields like the sciences, including social sciences.) The former could be filled with people selected for service at random, like jury duty, only they wouldn't be paid a pittance. Representatives should be far more 'representative' if they're chosen at random rather than all being rich to start.
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Interesting, but because people who are actually experts in major fields would rather not be diverted into politics, your noble chamber would quickly become a House of Lobbyists.
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But with nobody to lobby to except themselves and every last one of them will disagree with each other. Not a bad start, assuming they ever get consensus on something it will definitely be good for everyone.
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Maybe we could add a bit of scorched earth to the equation — make them battle it out with swords or flamethrowers or land mines or something. Last person standing determines whether the bill passes or not.
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Oh, yes, we most certainly do. Although the senate's one-state-two-votes rule is something of an anachronism, the primary purpose for the senate is very much still valid — putting the brakes on a fickle electorate by ensuring that no more than one third of that house can change in a single election cycle.
We need the Senate. If anything, it's the House we don't need. A lot of money could be saved and things could be streamlined big time in a unicameral legislature. Nebraska only has a state senate. The Senate isn't perfect, but to a certain extent it has always been somewhat less polarized than the House and occasionally members will work with members of the other party. But I can also point out that the Senate rule, which they could change, to require 60 votes to stop debate is a relic of a long gone t
CORRECTION (Score:2)
The above should have read, "The top two current senators in terms of money taken from super pacs are from Nevada and North Dakota." Not Montana, but North Dakota.
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We already don't need the Senate, and there are already proposals on the table to push a constitutional amendment dissolving the senate.
You never go full retard. You're not going to get many nibbles for this bait. Go back to Trolling 101.
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You should understand, the notion of abolishing the senate is nothing new. It was attempted in 1911 and it led to direct-election of senators. If you want reform, you have to push reform.
https://www.senate.gov/artandh... [senate.gov]
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Direct election of senators was a horrible idea. It made the senate not a voice of the states, but a shitty house of representatives with a horrible representation of the population. The senate needs to go back to being accountable to the states and not the people.
The people are really a shitty way to run the government because the people are largely stupid, easily manipulated, and unwilling to fix the real problems of government.
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I understand that it is now an article of faith among the right-wing that the
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I am not a Republican, but thanks for assuming. I'm not saying the people should have no say. I'm saying they ALREADY have a say through the House of Representatives. But their say shouldn't be the only say. Direct democracy is a horrible idea. Don't let a powerful minority control the future of the country, but don't let a powerful MAJORITY control it either. You need a balance between who gets control and how much control they have.
The citizens have largely turned toward voting themselves government benef
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I didn't assume. I just pointed out that your argument is one that is favored by right-wing Republicans, and why.
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Direct election of senators was a horrible idea. It made the senate not a voice of the states, but a shitty house of representatives with a horrible representation of the population. The senate needs to go back to being accountable to the states and not the people.
Things that were changed were usually changed for a reason. I've always wondered what the causes of the 17th Amendment was, so I just looked up some history. Seems it works fine till you have partisan governments, then you have issues with Senators not getting elected. Instead of a vote, you have to deal with state politics. Imagine some state official using procedure to prevent voting on a Senator because it would result in one not of his party, as he considered it better for the state to be down a senator
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Anyone wanting such "reform" is a fucking moron.
The Senate exists because we are a union of individual states, you fucking imbecile.
The STATES deserve representation just as much as the PEOPLE do.
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You've given a reason without telling us why. I'm telling you why. It was to protect an aristocracy and make sure only rich guys were in charge.
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Read that sentence out loud to yourself. ".. it was to make sure that the majority couldn't impose their will on the minority."
So they made sure a minority could impose its will on a majority. An elitist solution to a populist problem. Call it a "democratic republic", but make sure to strip out all the "democratic" parts.
And now that same system has ensured t
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It does in this case.
We're seeing this effect play out in events at this very moment. The majority of the population doesn't want a "wall" to be built, or a government shutdown in order to pay for the wall. Even people who live along the border are strongly opposed to a wall. Yet, the Senate stands in direct opposition to the will of the people by not
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The House represents populations, while the Senate represents areas. All of those proposals to ditch the Senate and the Electoral College come from people who would love to see those big-city blue towers on the voter demographic maps to rule us with absolute power. If that happened, we wouldn't need a House of Lords because AOC would rule as Queen.
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Why exactly should a big empty area get a vote?
Areas are not endowed by their creator with inalienable rights. People are. The founders kept the idea of a Senate so they could maintain an aristocracy.
It's good to know that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won't have to worry about the expense of maintaining an apartment in NYC and one in Washington DC because it appears that she's living rent-free in the heads of r
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The places between NYC/Boswash, Chicago and coastal California are not "empty." They have populations, and cultures, and count as part of our nation.
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We understand your culture all too well when we visit places like San Francisco, walking on needles and slipping on poop in the streets. I'll keep our tyrannic culture, thank you.
sick and tired (Score:2)
no one is forcing them in those jobs... and if so, can i use the same excuse for my job?
A Commendable Proposal (Score:1)
Ordinarily I would be against allowing the political class much, including the ability to telecommute while screwing everyone over. However, this is a GREAT idea. Taking the principal actors of the political class OUT of Washington DC and scattering them around the country will be GREAT for public life.
Removing elected representatives from an incestuous pool of lobbyists, revolving door back-scratchers, and fellating journalists would do wonders for civic AND economic life in the United States.
Concentrating
That would open the door to actual reform (Score:1)
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as you'd basically be allowing any 30k people in an area to vote someone into office.
Thereby leaving 9 other people elected by nine other sets of 30k to vote against anything your pet rep wants. (That's using the 300k/30k numbers.) Diluting the vote of your rep by a factor of ten.
This would mean that the representatives would actually be members of a community their representing, and have jobs other than "politician".
I don't know where you get that from. If you don't think being a rep for 30k full time is not a full-time job, you're nuts. What you will have done is multiply the costs of the House as far as payroll and benefits by a factor of ten.
but the Democratic party and leaders would lose sway because 3rd party candidates would be easily competitive.
I have no idea where you get this from, either. If 5% of the people vote for some t
could, yes, should, no (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: could, yes, should, no (Score:3, Funny)
Shut your face you liar! I'd kill you barehanded, not even needing to use my dual welded uzis as powerslide across your face in my Lamborghini as my hot girlfriend instagrams me being so cool and manly, many people are saying!
This is the GOP's goal. (Score:4, Interesting)
One of Newt Gingrich's core strategies for creating a Congress which couldn't work together was to discourage GOP members from fraternizing with the opposition. The idea was that they should spend more time in their home district, not have formal Washington residences, and DEFINITELY not spend any social time with Democrats. This prevents cases where friendships across the aisle develop based on mutual respect - you maybe disagree with someone, but you don't believe them to be a bad person. These days, politicians start from a position that their opponents are simply evil, and thus need not spend any effort trying to understand their opponents' positions.
Distributed working groups can work REALLY well if everyone involved works very hard to interact and keep on the same page as each other. But in my experience this is really hard, and it generally only works if you use this ability as a selection criteria. If you just select a dozen people based on criteria other than their ability to work together remotely, generally things end up a trainwreck, even if everyone in the group is generally awesome. [My experience is based mostly on software-engineering, which is likely far easier to do in a distributed group than politics. The entire POINT of politics is group discussions to figure out the solution, which is exactly the type of thing that works worst with distributed teams.]
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The worst laws pass unanimously (see: USA PATRIOT ACT, DMCA) and the President can unilaterally cause plenty of chaos by themselves, so this strategy isn't working out so well for us. Getting partisanship out of Congress seems like a better bet. What we want is dialectics, but what we have is debate ruled by tribalism.
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This is pretty easy to disprove. The Washington Post used to keep a database of every Congresscritter's vote [washingtonpost.com]. You could then sort each member by how likely they were to vote with their own party. The general trend is for the party in power to have more members vote with their party, so looking at those who were most likely to vote with their part
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This is pretty easy to disprove.
I'm not sure exactly what you're disproving, since the point you go on to make doesn't have any apparent relationship to my posting. I was referring to the stuff discussed in articles like this:
http://articles.latimes.com/20... [latimes.com]
I've not really seen anyone being contentious on this - some people don't think it matters, but I think it's generally accepted that Gingrich wanted to keep members from socializing across the aisle.
Of, For and By... Who? (Score:3)
No, that is not the corect way to represent the people. This is see/read/do/share http://3seas.org/ [3seas.org] a work order for government to act in accord to what the founders of the US extablished and intended. Of, for and by.... THE PEOPLE!
This opens them up to direct lobbying (Score:3)
On the face of it, this seems reasonable. Unfortunately, people will be as distracted as you let them be.
This type of remote attendance creates a scenario where you will have the lawmaker on screen, and 10 lobbyists sitting on the other side of the camera, holding the lawmakers feet to the fire. It is not hard to imagine a Pfizer representative handing the lawmaker ready made answers as well as votes in real time as they vote for the next drug funding bill. These are not fair and transparent votes
Until lobbying is illegal, it will always be there. You can not move a lawmaker far enough away from a lobbyist. Lawmakers and lobbyists co-exist in the current system.
--
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. - James Madison
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The point is not to move the lawmakers too far away for lobbyists, but rather to change the slope of the playing field in the opposite direction.
If a congressperson is in Washington D.C., then a company can hire a single lobbyist to talk to that congressperson in person, along with about 534 others, barring vacancies. And the congressperson
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Of course. But that costs a couple hundred dollars per politician. Multiply that times 535, and a single circuit around Congress likely costs more than your lobbyist's annual salary. Flying lobbyists to visit every politician is quite infeasible, and even flying to all the key politicians in a single committee is expen$ive. As I said, the goal is not to make lobbying impossible, just to make it expensive enough that the effects of corporate lobbying can easily be counteracted by public opinion.
Right no
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I dunno, I'm pretty sure "vote for this and we'll donate to your reelection campaign" beats out "we're angry, do X" no matter who is standing in front of you; at least for people who lack empathy (which is probably most politicians).
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And it will be a nice, easy drive for the people in the district to go up and visit their congresspeople.
Pull the other one, it plays ... well, let's put it this way. What may be a "nice, easy drive" for you would be a day off work and two hours each way, IF I could manage to get five minutes with any of them. Do you really think it is that easy for Joe Voter to get to see his state reps? Those are smaller districts and, for me, the drivetime is half.
but A. convincing someone by email/phone/snail mail is far less efficient than in-person conversations
Which is EXACTLY why you want to have congresspeople near others of similar, good, ideas so those ideas can germinate and take hold, not wither in a sea of privac
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but A. convincing someone by email/phone/snail mail is far less efficient than in-person conversations
Which is EXACTLY why you want to have congresspeople near others of similar, good, ideas so those ideas can germinate and take hold, not wither in a sea of privacy.
What good ideas? I haven't seen any good ideas out of either party since... well... wow, I'm actually having a hard time thinking of any. In my lifetime. I remember all the way back through Reagan, and can't think of a single law that hasn't been, at best, badly screwed up by lobbyists to the point that it had serious problems (including Obamacare, which is one of the least horrible). And most of them have been downright disasters.
No, what you want is to have congresspeople near the people, so that good
Good thing nobody lobbies congress directly today (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason this is being discussed is that left wing congress folks like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who don't sell out have a hard time affording life in DC and back home at the same time. The pressure is there on purpose, it's to make them crack and sell out for the money needed for a decent living. $174k sounds like a lot of money until you're trying to maintain two households, one of them
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$174k is almost exactly the median household income of the DC zip code closest to the Capitol p [moving.com]
Which would be fine if she lived in DC (Score:3)
They system is rigged against poor and working class in a million little ways. This is one of them.
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Yes, but with lots of caveats (Score:1)
Under emergency situations, like a war or natural disaster that prevents people from meeting in D.C. or any other single location, it's generally far better to have "virtual attendance" than not be allowed to be there to debate or vote at all, even if things like access to the press and the public were not the same as it is in Washington. In a war situation, you do need to have a check-and-balance to make sure none of the "remote" representatives have been captured or are otherwise under duress.
I can also s
teleconference (Score:1)
I can just see the scandals, pantsless politicians who dont realize everyone can see them... And you thought Anthony Weiner had problems
Wrong direction... (Score:3)
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Politicians are the problem (Score:2)
" Congressional members are "sick and tired of Washington and don't want to show up anymore to vote." "
You signed up for this job, either do it without whining about it or GTFO and let someone else do it instead.
Don't show up to do the job ? Strip them of all retirement packages and boot them the fuck out.
You know. . . . . what happens to the rest of us when we decide not to show up for work and do the damn job.
Personally, I think most of America is sick and tired of the politicians not doing their jobs at
Not just Congress, all branches need to move out (Score:2)
All executive departments except State need to move HQs to other parts of the county. The reasons are obvious. Continuity of government, distribution of overpaid bureaucratic jobs [cnsnews.com] and moving closer to the the places being managed.
No. No, and No. (Score:4, Interesting)
The telecommuting fad seems to be fading, which is good. People are finally starting to understand that there are, indeed, benefits to being in the same physical proximity with coworkers. So that's a "no" answer to the original question, since government will presumably work better -- the machinations of government, the behind-the-scenes interactions and negotiations -- when people can bump into each other at lunch, or meet for drinks, etc.
Then, there's the very deeply steeped idea that the US Federal and State governments should be accessible to all. There should be no barriers. If someone wanted to witness a public debate, then they should be able to do so with an absolute minimum of requirements. Needing any kind of equipment, including internet access, a computer, a screen, a mobile phone, ANYTHING, is a barrier, as there are people who do not have them. So "no" on that count as well, since public debate needs to be witnessed by people with first-hand direct experience, and that's not possible if the debate -- or even only part of the debate -- is available only electronically.
Finally, when someone has a job to perform, making that job difficult in some way, especially time, means that they are less likely to squander the privilege of holding office. If a representative has to travel 6 hours each way to get to Washington, then I'll bet they will minimize their travel time and make sure they use their time in DC and in their home office, more wisely than if it took no effort to be in DC at all. Think of how important an individual long-distance phone call was, and how well-chosen the words were, when every second carried a cost, as compared to the blather we get now with free long distance. So, "no" for the third time, because when a resource is precious, it gets used more wisely.
Call me a luddite (you wouldn't be the first), but there are distinct benefits to face-to-face interaction.
Why not? Deepfakes and voice fakes (Score:2)
Deepfakes: https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
Adobe voice fakes : https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
But I guess a couple of hardware tokens (issued, say, to the member and his aide) could be used to authenticate the session.
No (Score:2)
The Russians already got them voted to their job, no need to allow them to use fake videos to actually also vote on the laws.
Everyone should be able to vote on open policy. (Score:2)
...online.
And we need an Internet Human Rights court.
And we need to crowd fund public projects so the people maintain ownership of their works - instead of taxes!
Hurrah!
- Phillip @=}-~
Would it lead to more constituent time? (Score:2)
Bad idea (Score:2)
It's certainly worth considering. (Score:2)
Oh, that gives me an idea - don't let it be "from anywhere". Install secure communications hardware at the rep's district office and make it the only location from which they can act as present
Do we need representatives at all? (Score:2)
Also, thanks to technology.... a majority of the representative functions could likely be automated.
For example: instead of having a human representative cast the vote ----- there could be a machine which acts
as a digital or "virtual" representative to cast whichever vote a majority of the constituents have decided.
When it comes to drafting laws and dealing with investigations, hearings, or other issues: instead of
constituents having to permanently appoint 1 person to serve as an office for years - the
reality (Score:2)
The reality is that that virtualization is the way the world is headed. Looking to the old days when all the politicians in DC knew each other is nice, but it's not going to happen again. The problem is not politics, but simply growth in technology and fundamental changes in how our society communicates. It would be better to figure out how teleconferencing can be used effectively in politics than to try to maintain politics as a separate sub-culture. If politicians don't talk with us and with each other in
Re: (Score:2)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wants to hold Twitch town-halls. So I say go for it
Is anything, except the idea that she would be disenfranchising all her constituents that have no idea what the fuck "Twitch" is, stopping her from doing that today?
Re: (Score:2)
It's also going to be tough to hike the Appalachian Trail if you have to show up at home every night.