Congress is taking a step into the digital age.
Today, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, (R-Va.), unveiled a new website called the “Citizen Co-sponsor Project,” a project of the Office of the House Majority Leader.
The site allows citizens to co-sponsor their preferred bills as they move through the House of Representatives by endorsing them on its homepage through their Facebook accounts.
According to the website, it will allow users to “stay connected with Congress on Facebook. It’s your government, so make your voice heard and stay up-to-date on the progress of legislation you care about.”
Cantor, who controls the bills that come to the House floor, told National Review Online that he and other members will consider the endorsements bills receive on the site when they make decisions in the House, regardless of their number.
“I don’t think there’s necessarily going to be a threshold,” he said. “I think that it certainly will be one of the things that our Members, both Republican and Democrat, will be able to weigh in terms of how they look at particular issues and bills making their way through the process.”
The website is the product of the Citizen Co-Sponsor project announced last March. In launching that plan, Cantor said the he hoped to align the legislative process more with what people expect in a technology-driven society.
“We are dedicated to modernizing the way Congress connects with the American people. Citizen Cosponsor breaks ground by directly connecting people with the work the House is doing every day,” Cantor said. “With the simple click of a button, Citizen Cosponsors will become a part of the deliberative process, using the same social networks they already rely on in their everyday lives.”
Although Cantor said he hopes the site will spur more communication and interaction between legislators and their constituents, it has not yet become very popular. Only 35 people have “co-sponsored H.R 803 (the Skills Act), the most popular bill on the main page.
