Welcome to E-Lobbying
Email and blogs are starting to pack a more immediate punch with some lawmakers. Photo by KUT News.Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The internet isn’t new, of course. But a relatively newfangled use of the web may have had an impact on this week’s budget battle in the Texas Senate. Increasingly savvy lobbyists, bloggers and political operatives are using the Internet to tell lawmakers’ constituents directly where their representative or senator stands on a certain bill. That, in turn, can bring some heat from back home before legislators can explain for themselves in a newsletter or other mailer why they’re voting a particular way.
The practice doesn’t have a name, per se, so we’re calling it “e-lobbying.” KUT’s Ian Crawford and Jason Embry of the Austin American-Statesman discuss it and how it could impact public policy even more in this week’s “Texas Political Parlor.”
Podcast: Download (5.8MB)
