Monday, July 30, 2007

Sen. Durbin Embraces Blogging

Reprinted from the July 27, 2007 edition of National Journal's Technology Daily

Sen. Durbin Uses Blog To Craft Broadband Bill

By Aliya Sternstein

In a role reversal, Sen. Dick Durbin has been blogging about bloggers all week. Since Tuesday, the Illinois Democrat has been conversing with the "netroots" on the liberal blog Open Left to help him write high-speed Internet legislation.

"Today I'm writing to invite you to participate in an experiment -- an interactive approach to drafting legislation on one of the most significant public policy questions today: What should be America's national broadband strategy?" Durbin wrote on Sunday.

Each night, Durbin began his online discussions by asking for legislative proposals that touch on some of his core principles, like achieving universal, affordable broadband coverage. Should the four-day series prove fruitful, Durbin wrote, "it may become the way lawmakers approach drafting bills on other issues like education, health care and foreign policy."

At the outset, Open Left and Durbin's office invited the major telecommunications and cable companies to participate. All of them declined, but on Wednesday, representatives from AT&T's Hands Off the Internet and the AT&T/Verizon Communications-backed Latino Coalition joined the online discussion.

Conservative blogger Robert Bluey of the Heritage Foundation also took note of the development. He wrote on his personal blog, RobertBluey.com, that while it is admirable for Durbin to involve the netroots, "I think it's incredibly short-sighted to have a one-sided conversation with just liberals."

He added, "I wonder if he will be posting on RedState? Or if he plans to reach out to a non-ideological Web site?"

Bluey then e-mailed Durbin's office, which agreed to host a similar forum next Tuesday on the Republican blog RedState, where Bluey also writes.

"We'd be fools not to take him up on that," Durbin spokesman Joe Shoemaker said. Durbin's office also is in talks with a nonpartisan technology news site to host the e-legislation project.

Bluey said he thinks that Durbin's Open Left effort is getting positive reaction across the political spectrum. Bluey noted one comment left on RedState: "I would hope that if Durbin did decide to engage at RedState, we would afford him some degree of respect and stick to the issue at hand. The problem comes in when some nimrod decides to start beating on him about something completely unrelated."

Next week's RedState event will be an experiment of another kind. "It seems that liberal blogs are just much more active in terms of the number of commenters," so the quantity of posts will be something to watch, Bluey said.

On Friday, Shoemaker said the project "has been a very successful experiment thus far." For example, participants have suggested that federal legislation address the issue of broadband networks run by governments in a handful of U.S. cities.

"Nobody's flamed Durbin," Shoemaker said. "There's been no sort of off-topic discussions. People have disagreed with other participants," but the content "wasn't, 'SHUT UP.'"

Open Left co-Editor Matt Stoller said the venture is engaging citizens from rural areas who typically are not a part of the legislative or lobbying process. "I haven't even wrapped my head around how to describe it," he said.