Congress and Citizen Engagement

Earlier this week, the Pew Center’s survey on citizen trust in government shows trust in government has plummeted to record lows.  As if to support these findings, there were “gun rallies” in support of Second Amendment rights a few days ago.  And last week, there was a Tea Party rally demanding a smaller government. Last summer, there were angry town hall meetings across the country with members of Congress on health care reform. 

In parallel to this rise in grassroots citizen discontent with government is an active effort by President Obama to increase citizen engagement in their government.  His Open Government Initiative is beginning to take hold as agencies develop new initiatives and prepare detailed plans.  This Open Government trend is also being reflected at state and local levels.

And yesterday, it looks like Congress is taking notice.  The Congressional Management Foundation — a non-profit, non-partisan support group that helps individual members of Congress improve the management of their official offices – launched a new initiative to help Congress “listen to citizens and govern with their voices in mind.” 

It has created a Partnership for a More Perfect Union to “improve understanding through education, re-establishing trust, and providing innovative yet pragmatic tools to facilitate purposeful two-way communication.”  It will work not only with Congress but also with citizens and grassroots advocacy groups to “create meaningful civic engagement.”

This will include activities such as:

• Serving as a repository for New Media research, training, and resources that will help both Congress and citizens communicate better on public policy issues.
• Research and training on creating a “21^st Century Town Hall” format that includes in-person, on-telephone, and on-line engagement.
• Creating a mechanism, such as a code of conduct, that allows “participating grassroots practitioners to distinguish themselves as respected partners in the democratic dialogue.”
• Continuing its sponsorship of the “Gold Mouse Award” Project to recognize congressional websites that provide a high degree of transparency and information.

Why is the Congressional Management Foundation doing this? In part, because of the nature of the political climate, but also because grassroots advocacy has grown so much in recent years because of the availability of technology. 

The Foundation found that “many congressional offices are suspicious of advocacy campaigns of identical form messages,” but the grassroots community argues “that the vast majority of communications are from constituents who perform a direction action.”  There is mistrust between the two that leads congressional staff to discount constituent messages, and this creates a gulf. 

This is then compounded in in-person town hall meetings where “there has been an alarming increase in incivility and dissatisfaction on the part of both Members and citizens,” with “meetings targeted by busloads of non-constituents with a goal of disrupting the meeting.”

The Partnership is pursuing a five-year agenda, beginning this year with a foundation of strong organizational development and several projects.  It will also recruit both staff and fellows, and partner with other organizations such as AmericaSpeaks and Fleishman-Hillard.  Next year, it will sponsor the first annual Conference on Effective Civic Dialogue.  My guess is that there will be lots of “lessons learned” from the upcoming congressional election campaigns!

On-Line Town Halls

This past summer the spectacle of unruly congressional town hall meetings on health care reform played across the media. Separately, the Obama Administration has been working on an on-line approach for greater citizen engagement but found some citizen groups tried to push their own agendas, such as the “legalize marijuana” and the “birthers” demanding President Obama’s “true” birth certificate.

Can citizens engage civilly and constructively?  The Congressional Management Foundation released a study today, “On-Line Town Hall Meetings:   Exploring Democracy in the 21^st Century.”  This study reports on a series of pilot on-line town halls that might serve as an additional tool Members of Congress can use to engage their constituents.  The purpose of the study was to see what worked and what did not.

The pilots were small, involving one senator (Carl Levin) and a dozen House members.  Senator Levin’s town hall involved 200 people; the others involved only a couple dozen participants apiece.   The study’s organizers invited participants based on their representativeness of their districts. The town halls focused on the topic of immigration and were held between 2006 and 2007.  Oftentimes the Member was in Washington and not in his or her district.  To see if it made a difference, non-partisan background materials were shared with some participants but not others.

The results were fairly positive.  There was more participation by under-represented groups (young, old, minorities) as well as a high quality in the discussion.  While there were relatively few participants, those that did participate talked about their experience with neighbors.  They also increased their political participation, for example, by voting in elections where they might not have in the past.  Also, 95 percent of the participants said they would likely participate in similar events in the future.

In addition, the town halls increased constituents’ approval of their Members from 46 percent before the sessions to 62 percent afterwards, with an assessment of the “accessibility” of the Members increasing from 48 percent to 80 percent.  Members were seen as more knowledgeable and qualified, as well.

While some noted that an on-line town hall does not capture the “mood of the room” or allow for a back-and-forth discussion, more participants felt heard because if their questions were not asked during the session the questions were recorded and followed up on later.

The executive branch shortly may plunge into the use of electronic forums in a bigger way than Members of Congress, but there are clearly lessons to be learned in the use of electronic tools that can be beneficial to both executive and legislative branches.  Hopefully, there will be dedicated efforts to fine-tuning the use of electronic tools for engaging citizens, especially since they seem to open more avenues for more citizens!