Report Says Charities’ E-Mail Is Unlikely to Sway Congress
By Debra E. Blum, Marilyn Dickey and Holly Hall
January 14, 1999 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Charities increasingly have been using e-mail as a way to try to get their messages into the hands of members of Congress. But a new report says electronic messages may not pay off as much as charities had hoped.
The report, “Speaking Up in the Internet Age,” was published by OMB Watch, a Washington research and advocacy group, and was based on a survey of 37 Congressional offices.
“The form of communication that Congressional offices take most seriously when considering a policy position remains the personal letter sent through the mail, followed by personal visits and telephone calls,” says the report.
The report’s authors said Congressional offices are likely to take e-mail more seriously in the future. But reaching Congress via computers may get more difficult. The report says the House of Representatives plans to do away with its current e-mail system and replace it with one that will automatically screen e-mail messages with the goal of accepting only those from constituents.
According to the report, the new system is designed to eliminate unwanted messages that are not related to the work of Congress, as well as messages from people who live outside a member’s district. Representatives will get new e-mail addresses, which will not be available to the public unless individual members choose to give them out.
In cases where e-mail addresses are not made public, people will have to go through a Representative’s Web site to send an electronic message, and they will be required to provide a postal address before their message will be accepted. Messages that include a postal address that is outside a member’s district will not be delivered.
The report criticizes the new e-mail system, saying it will not allow “democratic participation on the Internet.”
The new system will affect many charities that have set up Web sites to make it easy for people to send e-mail messages to Congress on issues the organizations care about, the report said.
In addition to the e-mail survey, the report includes a review of 70 Congressional Web sites.
OMB Watch describes most as woefully lacking in substance, and infrequently updated. Very few sites included information on voting records, position papers, or press releases about policy. Furthermore, none mentioned how the members of Congress planned to vote on pending issues.
To order free copies of the report: Contact OMB Watch by fax (202) 234-8584 or e-mail ombwatch@ombwatch.org. The report will also be available soon on the organization’s Web site (http://www.ombwatch.org).
