Mobile All Things Reform - get your action alerts and call your representatives away from your desk

Introducing mobile All Things Reform! Now, you can access our full blog posts, including action alerts, by SMS on your mobile. When you are away from your desk, just go to the mobile website URL:

http://allthingsreform.mofuse.mobi/

And, for your convenience, there is also a Click 2 Call link to the Capitol Switchboard for taking action on those alerts. When calling the Capitol Switchboard (202-224-3121, not toll-free), just ask for your US Representative or either of your US Senators and they will forward your call to their Washington DC office. Also, there is our poetspirit Twitter feed from the mobile All Things Reform homepage.

Now, receiving action alerts and calling your representatives just got easier!

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Job opening at E-Democracy.org

E-Democracy.org is a locally based organization with volunteers across the country and around the world setting up vibrant online spaces, where community members, elected officials, and local journalists share ideas and information. They are looking for someone with a combination of community organizing and technology skills to serve as a part-time contractor, providing technical and organizational support to our issues forums participants and network of volunteers. The job description and requirements, etc is at E-Democracy.org.

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Check if your Congressmembers' websites include local appropriations (earmarks) forms

According to a recent Americans for Prosperity blog post, at least three Congressmembers have online earmark request forms! That's right, if you are a constituent of these public servants, you can request federal money for non-legislative, locally-based projects online:

Florida Senator Bill Nelson: http://www.billnelson.senate.gov/contact/appropriationsfy09.cfm

Montana Representative Denny Rehberg: http://www.house.gov/rehberg/approps.form.shtml [Page not found]

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown: http://brown.senate.gov/ohio/constituent_services/spending_request/

Check your own two US Senators' and US Representative's websites to see if they presently offer this same online constituent appropriations "service".

AFP in its post suggests we taxpayers hijack these online forms "to make a statement about just how big a problem earmarks have become (wink wink, nudge, nudge) and to demand transparency for earmark requests before earmarks make it into appropriations reports." I don't know how this may (legally) be done, but we are the owners of this country, and our representatives work for us... it is up to us, ultimately...

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Many Congressional websites get failing grades

The Gate blog from National Journal has news on the effectiveness of Congress's websites. The news is not good. As the internet grows in importance to citizens finding out about their government, the quality of Congress's websites must follow suit. Here's the post:

January 14, 2008
New Report Gives Congressional Web Sites Flunking Grades
A number of congressional Web sites received flunking marks from the Congressional Management Foundation in a report released Monday.
The report, which evaluated 618 congressional Web sites, gave 18.8 percent of these sites an F, while 22.8 percent received a D. Only 16.8 percent of the sites received an A from the group. The foundation said Web sites were evaluated on how well they incorporate the following factors: "audience, content, usability, interactivity, and innovation."
The analysis -- funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation --seeks to recognize congressional Web sites that successfully use the Internet and to provide practical guidance to all offices on how to improve their Web sites.
The foundation found that "the Senate continues to outperform the House of Representatives on the Web." The number of "substandard or failing committee sites increased to 44 percent, and the percentage of House and Senate committee (both majority and minority) Web sites scoring an 'F' doubled between 2006 and 2007," the group also found.
The report further held that a third of congressional sites do not have a functional search engine, and 57 percent do not contain information about legislative issues of interest to the state.
-WINTER CASEY, National Journal

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