Hill Tweet News: Tweet For Transparency
March 12, 2009, 10:09pm
The Sunlight Foundation, an open-government group, has been pushing hard for the past few years to force a vote on legislation that would compel Senate candidates to post their campaign finance reports electronically. Sunlight took its cause to Twitter this week by telling people to “tweet” their support for the idea to senators who can make it happen.
The new media tactic caught the attention of two Democratic senators, @clairecmc of Missouri and @Barbara_Boxer of California. Boxer noted that she co-sponsored a previous bill on the topic and will do so again. And Claire McCaskill wrote: “I’ve supported electronic filing of campaign reports for a long time. It’s embarrassing that we are not required to file electronically.”
“In less than 24 hours, two out of 15 of the senators on Twitter who had not co-sponsored are now cosponsors,” Blumenthal noted on Sunlight’s blog. “In terms of grassroots outreach that is an amazing turn around.”
Here is a sampling of other Hill tweets from today:
- Why did the public lands bill fail in the House? According to @GOPLeader, it was a Second Amendment fight.
- @Senate_GOPs complained that labor unions turned a Senate hearing on “card check” into pep rally.
- @DeanHeller wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., about card check. “It could cost us 600,000 jobs by end of 2010.”
- @edlabordems posted videos from today’s hearing about lost educational opportunities in alternative settings.
- @SenJohnMcCain found a Washington Post article on Democratic thoughts about taxing health benefits “very interesting.” President Obama scoffed at the idea in the 2008 presidential campaign.
To get Capitol Hill’s inside scoop from Twitter, subscribe to “Hill Tweet News.” It’s the best and quickest way to learn who sniped at whom, and why; what lawmakers did and said in committee, on the floor, on the news shows and elsewhere; and what articles, shows, Internet videos and more grabbed their attention.
Categories: California, Missouri, Gun Rights, Politics, Health, Labor, Technology, Education, Taxes, Natural Resources, Claire McCaskill, Hill Tweet News, Barbara Boxer
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