Franking Commission

In the somewhat bizarre ongoing fight over House Franking Commission rules, Nancy Pelosi has made it even worse. Yesterday, on her Speaker's Office blog, she published a letter that she sent to House Republican Leader John Boehner:

Thank you for your letter on the recommendations by Franking Chair Capuano to the Committee on House Administration regarding posting web video external to the House.gov domain. We share the goal of modernizing the antiquated franking regulations to address the rapidly changing realities of communications in the internet age. Like many other Members, I have a blog, use YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Digg, and other new media to communicate with constituents, and I believe they are vital tools toward increasing transparency and accountability.

I am glad that the speaker uses technology like any normal online activist. But I wonder why she is using technology that violates the rules that Rep. Mike Capuano (D-MA) is proposing. Furthermore, she and other House Democrats have pointed out that these uses are currently in violation of House rules.

Click-through to any of the videos and you will see "political content". Click through to the Facebook site, and you will find advertisements, clear "commercialization".

Do these people understand that they are currently in violation of House rules and are proposing new rules that they are also in violation of? And if they don't think that there is any problem with their current usage -- and their isn't -- why don't they want to write rules that are in accordance with current practice?

Do these people have any idea what they are doing?

Yesterday, TechDirt, one of the leading technology blogs, played a little defense on the debate about House Franking rules on the use of external sites.

Rep. John Culberson responded in the comments.

If the Ds rule change were in effect today, before I could post this, YOUR website/blog would have to be preapproved as complying with House rules, my post would require a disclaimer that it was "produced by a House office for official purposes," and the CONTENT of my post would have to preapproved by the House Franking Committee as complying with "existing content rules and regulations."

Now, TechDirt is correct that under the current rules, Culberson is not allowed to post this comment at all, but that is the problem. House Democrats are proposing a rule that does not solve the current problem in any meaningful way. Their solution would not allow members and staff to respond to blog posts in comments.

That's objectively crazy. That's why the Republican proposal should be adopted, not the luny Democratic one. That should be the debate that we are having.

This story about how Senators, Representatives and Congressional offices can use the internet is very important - and a reflection of the outdated and slow-to-evolve regulatory system that Congress has in place.   Of course, this dynamic is basically true of pretty much every part of Government.

I dealt with some of these frustrating issues during my time on the Hill.  For instance, we wanted to put up a blog.  We spent 3-4 months trying to negotiate the tools we could use (basically, none), after which the problem moved to a technology advisory committee.  That group would taking a vote on the feasibility of implementing blog platforms into the Senate internet infrastructure.   The archaic bureaucracy took the simple matter of creating a blog and regulated the project right out of existence.  (Note: the House and Senate have somewhat different rules)

As Soren Dayton described yesterday, the same thing is happening with Congressional office use of web tools to communicate.

Capuano's proposal is a disaster. It creates a list of sites, maintained by the Committee on House Administration that members are allowed to post material. ... ["content should not be posted on a website or page where it may appear with commercial or political information or any other information not in compliance with the House's content guidelines"] ... This would, for example, not allow members to post information to Facebook, which has ads and, dare I say, political content.

This policy is absurd.  Why should Congressional offices be prohibited from placing content on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter due to the commercial or political content on those sites, but still be able to push content to the Washington Post, The Politico and CNN....all of which are equally commercial and political?

Republicans should demand the rules committees be consistent here.  If they really don't want Members placing content with commercial entities, then let's see how long they want to go without distributing content to commercial media. 

I'm not really sure this is a matter of Democrats fearing trying to suppress Republican speech, though it's certainly a good example of what happens when you make government responsible for making these decisions.

Ultimately, there are two problems here:

1. Where you can place content – e.g., can you put a video on YouTube (thus being adjacent to advertising)?
2. What you can put on your own website – e.g., can you embed a YouTube video (thus, tangentially supporting a commercial entity)?

I can see the value of preventing members from engaging in commercial activity, but it would seem that Problem #1 applies equally to any commercial media outlet, and Problem #2 applies to any branded product the government uses (cars, pens, etc). 

The House Republican solution that Soren Dayton described is simple and correct: "Only the posted content must comply with House rules, not the whole external site." 

In typical fashion, House Democrats are trying to pass rules that stifle debate and require regulation. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) sent a letter to the Chairman of the Committee on House Administraion Kevin Brady. The letter is a response to a debate about whether the House should allow members to use YouTube, first raised by Rep. Kevin McCarthy back in April. From that story:

The reason is simple enough: The Franking Commission frowns on official links to campaign-related Web sites, political parties, advocacy groups and "any site the primary purpose of which is the conduct of commerce."

Well, Capuano's proposal is a disaster. It creates a list of sites, maintained by the Committee on House Administration that members are allowed to post material. Except, those sites have a caveat:

To the maximum extent possible, official content should not be posted on a website or page where it may appear with commercial or political information or any other information not in compliance with the House's content guidelines.

Just to make it clear, these guidelines are apply to the content on the external site, not the House site. Would Larry Lessig call that "neanderthal"? This would, for example, not allow members to post information to Facebook, which has ads and, dare I say, political content.

House Republicans have the technologically serious response. Their response letter, attached, says:

Members may use technologies, websites, and services (paid or unpaid) too communicate with their consituents via text, video, or audio so long as the content posted by the Member complies with House rules and Franking Commission regulations. Members may use free communications and networking services so long as these services are available on the same terms and conditions as others.

Only the posted content must comply with House rules, not the whole external site.

Who gets technology? Either, as Capuano noted to the Post, ""To me, the Web is a necessary evil like cellphones," or House Democrats are trying to make it harder for the opposition to get their message out.