I had the pleasure of meeting up with old friends from Capitol Hill and making some new friends at a small reception last night. I came away reminded of, and impressed by, the stark cultural divide between Washington insiders and (for lack of a more precise term) “the rest of us.”
It crystalized for me when I joked with one of my former colleagues about how little I had enjoyed lobbying, mostly because of the clients. They so often wanted to do the wrong thing, and I was supposed to go on the Hill and sell it. She agreed: “Clients. They’re the constituents of the lobbying world.”
We understood one another. For Hill staff, constituents are a pesky annoyance you want to be rid of as soon as possible. Having worked in House leadership, she continued to muse, Members of Congress are the constituents of the leadership world.
There’s no place lower on the totem pole than being a constituent. They are to be avoided – buttered up if necessary, but dismissed one way or another as quickly as possible.
I noted a theme in the reactions as I told these old friends about WashingtonWatch.com and the half-million visitors it had last year. For the most part, they’re advocates of one kind or another now, either in lobbying firms or trade associations. I talked about the better access to information WashingtonWatch.com gives people, and their opportunity to advocate through voting, comments, and the wiki functionality on each page.
Blank stares. Frozen smiles. Let’s have another drink! Translating roughtly to: “Oh, the Internet. OK. Uh-huh.”
For all the good energy going into government transparency and public involvement, my sense is that it’s still widely disregarded by the Washington, D.C. mainstream. I suspect it will be quite disruptive when it all “arrives” – that is, when direct and forthcoming engagement with the public is part of the advocacy business model. But it’ll be a while yet.
A new friend I made there is involved in the State Department’s new blogging effort, Dipnote (ambassadorial lingo for “diplomatic note,” I take it). She described some of the reaction State Department folks have had so far to being part of an open blog. (Comments! Two-way communication – eek!)
A decent reserve of resentment has probably built up among the “constituents” of federal agencies, Congress, and the business of governing generally. Americans have been treated as outsiders to their government for too long. Though it’ll be a little rough, it will only be healthy to bring government officials and Washington advocates into more contact with the people that their jobs are all about.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.