This week, I had the opportunity to speak on a keynote panel at 2010 Politics Online Conference regarding the use of New Media in Government. Last night, I was honored to receive my 5th Mouse Award from the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) recognizing the best websites in Congress. As the only Member in Congress to receive a website award from CMF each year, I owe my success to the values of innovation and hard work, exemplified well by my 15th District, which propel me to be at the forefront of the New Media wave.
 
Events like these usually elicit questions about why I put so much emphasis on constituent communications through new technology. As a former educator, I have always believed that involving stakeholders in decision-making yields the best results. This method works in the classroom, and is essential when governing. The American people are our nation’s greatest resource and the residents of CA-15 are my guide.
 
Empowering the public with information can lead to better public policy.  Representing the interests of constituents becomes easier when technology enables elected officials to more easily tap into the knowledge and expertise of the public. I have spent my career in Congress pushing for this and promoting technologies, developed in my Silicon Valley, which can enable citizens to have better access to their representatives, and also leading to increased transparency too. Read more...

From The Hill's Ballot Box blog:

Another new poll shows former Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Calif.) opening up a lead in the state's GOP Senate primary.

The SurveyUSA poll has Campbell leading former HP CEO Carly Fiorina 34-27. The margin is a little smaller than the 31-17 difference in a recent bipartisan poll but the lesson is the same -- that Campbell has asserted himself as the frontrunner with a month and a half to go in their June 8 primary.

Of course, plenty will happen in the last month and a half. Campbell is taking some heat from third-party groups who don't think he's conservative enough, and Fiorina has personal money that she can use to outspend him down the stretch. She had $2.8 million in the bank, while he had $1.1 million.

Congress continues to ask questions about the National Broadband Plan.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) will chair a hearing by the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship on Tuesday to examine federal efforts to extend Internet access to small firms. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is scheduled to testify, as is Department of Commerce Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling.

National Association of Broadcasters CEO Gordon Smith and CTIA CEO Steve Largent will also appear. So will American Cable Association Chairman Steve Friedman and CenturyLink Vice President Tom Gerke.

On Thursday, the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet will hold its hearing looking at the availability of devices that can serve as gateways to the Internet. The National Broadband Plan proposes using TV set-top boxes as primary avenues to get online, since most households have a TV set but not all households have computers.

This hearing was postponed earlier in the month.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) on Thursday gave a withering assessment of proposed budget cuts to NASA.

THURSDAY BLOG ROUNDUP:
School days for Bill Gates - Ina Fried, Cnet
WH doing 'open for questions' on Wall St. - Nancy Scola, techPresident
House panel wary of movie exchanges - Sara Jerome, Tech Daily Dose
FCC opens set-top box to Net, competition - Cecilia Kang, Post Tech
White House: Drupal developer? - Nate Anderson, ars technica
Why didn't Facebook launch location features - Matthew Ingram, Giga OM

OTHER STORIES FROM THE HILL:
New way of activist lobbying: Facebook hacks - The Hill
FCC commissioner predicts net neutrality fight - The Hill
Fed contractor database launches today - The Hill
GOP senator calls NASA budget insane - The Hill

Advocacy campaigns have found a new way to get noticed by lawmakers: taking over their Facebook profiles and bombarding them with tweets about the cause.

The Enough Project at the Center for American Progress, which is advocating for human rights for women and children in Congo, has asked supporters to "politely hijack" the Facebook pages of members of Congress.

The campaign is targeting 10 members, blanketing their profiles with pleas for them to sign on as co-sponsors to the Conflict Minerals Trade Act, which would monitor the global trade of goods that fuel violence in Congo. 

The so-called "profile hijacking" could be the next wave of citizen lobbying, as Facebook gives activists easy access to members' official profiles.

Michael Copps  stressed the debate over whether the government should regulate broadband will not be "solved without a fight."

A database containing details about every federal contractor working in every area of the government is launching today as part of a new law.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), senior member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, led the charge in making the new database a reality.

The Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System aims to prevent less-than-ethical contractors from taking overlapping jobs, covering up past poor performances, or not being upfront about conflicts of interests. Federal procurement officers are supposed to use the information in the database when certifying a vendor. 

There's one catch: The database is not open to the public--it is only accessible to federal agencies.

“If we’re going to get the best bang for our buck, we need to make sure the people who are awarding contracts have access to all the information they need to make smart decisions," McCaskill said. "Because we didn’t have a centralized place for the information, bad actors were being awarded new contracts despite countless dollars lost to waste, fraud and abuse.”

A top Senate Democrat appropriator on Thursday declined to take much of a stance toward the White House's re-tooled NASA budget, though she did stress the United States could not afford to reinvent the agency every four years.

As the White House seeks to cancel most of NASA's manned-space flight program, provoking congressional outrage, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said during an appropriations hearing more investigation and research was needed before she could decide whether that was the correct course of action.

"I need to know more details. I want to know if this is the program that Congress and the American people are going to support from one administration to the next," said Mikulski, the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science.

"We cannot reinvent NASA every four years. Every new president can't have a new NASA agenda," the senator stressed, noting she would convene as many hearing as necessary to learn more about the president's changes.

Outrage at the White House's 2011 NASA budget has long been pointed, as lawmakers have questioned the president's rationale for ending Constellation -- the program created by former President George W. Bush to send astronauts to the Moon and Mars.

While both the White House and NASA claim technology does not yet exist to complete those missions in the time frame Bush outlined, lawmakers from both parties have slapped the administration for stripping the agency of a long-term goal. President Barack Obama has since relaxed some of those proposed cuts, but even White House's revised budget proposal has invoked some lawmakers' ire.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) echoed those concerns during Thursday's appropriations hearing, stressing the administration's stance is "ironic considering [their] recent statements that the ultimate objective of our space program is Mars."