August 9 1994

The Senate's Internet "Election Freeze"

By Scott Fritchie (fritchie@STOLAF.EDU)

This article and its HTML markup appeared in the Internet Center of O'Reilly & Associate's Global Network Navigator during the week of August 22, 1994.

One day while surfing the World Wide Web, I ran across a home page for Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA). When I looked it up again the other day, I was dismayed to find the following:

: Election Freeze; ===============; In compliance with regulations of the Senate Rules Committee for a Senator who is a candidate for any public office, no materials will be electronically posted to the Internet or other computer bulletin boards from Senator Kennedy's office between July 23rd and November 8th, Election Day. Senator Kennedy's WWW pages and FTP directories at M.I.T. are frozen, except for routine maintenance. The Senator's Gopher site and FTP archives at the Senate will also remain largely inactive. But, the Senator's electronic mail address (senator@kennedy.senate.gov) will remain active.

I'm working on a project called Minnesota E-Democracy 1994, a non-partisan effort to provide the public with greater access to U.S. Senate and Minnesota governor campaign/election information in electronic form. I read this message about the freeze in amazement. Though Senator Durenberger (R-MN) is not running for re-election this year, would the freeze apply to Senate candidates? What's the scope of the Senate rules? What if we wanted to expand the scope of the project to cover US House of Reps races -- does the House have a similar rule? With so many questions buzzing in my mind, I had no choice: I sent an email note to Senator Kennedy's email address (above) and asked them all.

I got a phone call a couple of days later from Chris Casey, a staffer in Senator Kennedy's office. He was *extremely* helpful in explaining things and sorting out what the Senate rules do and don't apply to.

This is (arguably) the first election where electronic communication tools, such as those available on the Internet, will come into play. The Senate Rules Committee has a set of rules governing the use of these communication tools which apply to all standing members of the Senate.

The "election freeze" mentioned in Senator Kennedy's Web home page is a reaction to a Senate rule prohibiting:

mailings of unsolicited email (snailmail? My notes are unclear) totaling 500 messages or more
use of Senate facilities, such as sound recording studios, ... 60 days prior to an election (general, primary, or runoff). The Senate gopher server, gopher.senate.gov, since it is an official "facility," is covered by the rule, and therefore its use during the next 60 days by Senator Kennedy is prohibited.

Senator Kennedy's Web home page, it should be noted, is *not* being served by the Senate's Gopher server, freeing it (technically) from Senate rules. In order to comply with the spirit of the rules, however, Senator Kennedy has agreed to comply with the 60 day ban on all electronic "publishing" services: the Senate Gopher, the home page (and related documents) on MIT's Web server, and the Massachusetts BBS system where much of his material is distributed.

An interesting side note: according to Chris, the Senate Rules Committee was going to pull the plug on the *entire* Senate Gopher on of September 9th (or thereabouts). That's the day when the 60 day ban would affect 1/3 of all Senate members, due to upcoming elections. Poof! No more Gopher server, period. Chris said he had to wage a tremendous fight to avoid the shutdown. The compromise is the replacement of all individual Senator information with the single menu entry "Notification - 7/28/94." Retrieval of that file simply states "Senate policy restricts a Senator's use of the Senate Internet servers during the sixty days before an election." The Gopher server and its documents on Senate committees should be up and running through the elections.

The directories at the House of Representatives's Gopher server, gopher.house.gov, for individual members all point to Gopher servers at universities (presumably) within their districts. (Six Representatives are listed there.) Chris doesn't know of any similar restrictions on House franking privileges with respect to the House's Gopher server. Even if the House had the same rules as the Senate, would that mean the the House Gopher would have to remove the pointers to information stored off-site and unrestricted by the rule? {Chuckle}

So, with the House taking a laissez faire approach to member use of the Internet, what's stopping members from renting Web and Gopherspace via name-your-favorite-Internet-service-provider-here? Not much, it seems, other than perhaps ignorance. And what's keeping Senators from doing the same thing? With Senator Kennedy, it's a desire to honor the spirit of the Senate rules. How many other Senators will decide *not* to do the same thing?

Or, how long will it take before the Senate Rules Committee amends its rules to limit explicitly its 60 day ban to official Senate electronic facilities? Or, at the very least, allow members to distribute their information electronically through public service projects like Minnesota E-Democracy?

Following this story of the Senate's struggle with new tools has definitely been interesting. {Hearty laugh}