Senator cuts mass committee e-mails
BOISE – An Idaho senator got state computer technicians last month to eliminate the public’s ability to send messages to every member of a legislative committee simultaneously after lawmakers were deluged by thousands of e-mails over an abortion bill.
The function was dumped for panels in both the Senate and the House by Legislative Services, which oversees legislators’ e-mail accounts. The change came after Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, complained.
When a bill to require minor girls to get their parents’ permission before having an abortion was debated in the Senate State Affairs Committee in February, many of those in favor simply sent a message to all nine members with a single mouse click. Now people will have to type each address separately.
Davis said he’d received about 1,800 abortion-related e-mails before finally asking for the alteration.
“Most of the committee got bombarded by literally thousands of e-mails by somebody who just clicked the ‘send all’ button,” he said. “We don’t have enough staff to sort through them. Every person can still communicate with all 105 legislators. They just have to make an effort to send them to all of us.”
Some groups that rely on mass e-mails are unhappy with the change.
Bryan Fischer, head of the Idaho Values Alliance, a conservative, anti-abortion lobbying group, complained that eliminating this function will make it more difficult to influence legislation.
Fischer has hundreds of e-mail-list subscribers whom he, in turn, asks to mail lawmakers. Efficiency counts, he said.
“This effort has kind of silenced their ability to communicate their wishes to the various committees,” Fischer said.
Though the ability to e-mail all members at once has been in place for two years, it wasn’t until this year that the mass mailings threatened to swamp lawmakers, said Sheila Ison, a spokeswoman for Legislative Services.
“We’ve never made it possible for people to mass e-mail all 105 legislators at once, for that very reason,” Ison said. “I’ve tried to explain to people that it’s more effective to contact legislators from their own district.”
It is still possible to send an e-mail to all committee members, though it’s not as quick as before, Ison said.
Some lawmakers say that Davis’ changes weren’t made with everyone’s knowledge or consent.
“I have counseled constituents to send e-mails to committees,” said Rep. George Sayler, D-Coeur d’Alene, who learned of the changes from a reporter. “I think that’s a valid way to communicate,” he said, before adding, “The delete button can be pretty effective.”
Others say, however, that the mass e-mails make it hard to separate heartfelt pleas from the heartless mailings.
“E-mail in the beginning was a personal expression of opinion from somebody in my district,” said House Minority Leader Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum. “E-mail is starting to become like getting 500 postcards that all say the same thing.”
Neither House Speaker Lawerence Denney, R-Midvale, nor House Majority Caucus Chair Ken Roberts, R-McCall, knew about the changes.
Nonetheless, Roberts said he’s no fan of mass mailings.
For instance, on Monday, the member of the House Revenue and Taxation Committee received about 150 e-mails from proponents of a bill to allow the creation of taxing districts to pay for public transportation.
Dozens of the messages were blank, except for the text, “Write your message here.”