Seems like a great idea. I'll email my Rep and Senator about it right away and so should everybody. They must be made to know that we are watching and we want to know what they're up to.
The more our Reps blog, the less they'll be likely to lie to us thanks to the self checking nature of blogging.

Seems like a great idea. I'll email my Rep and Senator about it right away and so should everybody.
They must be made to know that we are watching and we want to know what they're up to.
The more our Reps blog, the less they'll be likely to lie to us thanks to the self checking nature of blogging.

Bill, why are you acting like this is so "interesting" and such big news? Why be so coy about it? It's your site.

Yes, I own the domain name, paid for the hosting and installed the software and the design. But VolPols.com will not be a partisan blogger's blog. In fact, it soon will have bipartisan oversight.

The only way it will have a partisan slant will be if more legislators of a specific party choose to blog here than do legislators of another party. If every member of the Tennessee legislature blogged here, VolPols.com would have a Democratic tilt.

SKB confirms another trait Americans find grating about lefties. No sense of humor. Dear lord.

I think you are leaving some people out of the invite list, Bill. What about liberal Republicans? The Pre-K vote in the House showed a plethora of those. If what I am hearing is correct, Jamie Hagood may qualify as such quite soon.

And what about conservative Democrats? OK, so the list is short, but Nathan Vaughn might qualify if he could break the Jedi mindtrick being played on him by Darth Naifeh.

Cheers,

Rob

Great work Bill Hobbs.

I'm trying to work with Erick Erickson of RedState.org to start pumping up a National Legislative Blogospheric Challenge.

First state to get 100% legislature blogmanship participation wins the grand prize.

http://www.redstate.org/

http://www.erickerickson.org/blog/

Georgia has one now....

http://ronforster.blogspot.com/

Tennessee has one....

http://lastcar.blogspot.com/

Utah has one.....

http://www.steveu.com/blog

I say we get some big guns like Instapundit and start pumpimg up some kind of Huge Mongo National Legislative Blogging Challenge.

First state to get 100% legislative blogging pariticipation wins the big prize.

Ultimate goal would be to get every single legislator in the country blogging for the people every single day.

We could set up one website that would be used as the National State Legislator Blogging Directory.

Stacey Campfield will go down in history as a great pioneer alongside the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry.

I'm a leftie with a sense of humor. Could someone kindly please point out the part where I was supposed to laugh?

Before updating, this post read only:

"Well, *this* certainly looks interesting. Now ... which state legislators will have the courage of their ideas and the faith in their beliefs to participate?"

I think anyone who read that passage would assume the person linking to the site just discovered it, not had a hand in it.

A commenter pointed that fact out and was immediately accused of having no sense of humor. HAHA, THAT'S FUNNY!
No, wait...I still don't get it.

Thanks, Mr. Hobbs. I've had the url bookmarked since early this afternoon. Wonder who's gonna be first?

Bill Hobbs,

Sounds like a great idea. I just hope that the politicians have the common sense to use such a vehicle to interact and communicate their views, opinions and message. One would think that a Press Secretary worth their salt would utilize this. We shall see.

I hope we get an opportunity to discuss with this with you, Scared Monkeys will be attending BlogNashville.

Volunteers needed to help get legislators to blog for the people nationwide.

Sign up here.

http://lawmakers.blogspot.com/

Brittney is exhibit B.

Okay, liberals have no sense of humor. Now back to the issue at hand:

I think the idea of legislator's with blogs as a fantastic idea. Nothing would be more beneficial to voters and their representatives than the type of direct communication that a blog allows. But I think this post today clearly illustrates why those blogs should not be hosted by a private citizen.

I'm not saying that Mr. Hobbs was trying to deceive anyone by "teasing" his new site in such a manner, but the entry was a little misleading. The wording insinuated to anybody reading it that Volpols.com was discovered by the author, not created by him.

I would be wary of legislators blogging at a .com address rather than a .gov address. A third party who is partisan serving as a portal might, even unintentionally, slant the content one way or the other.

Brittney,

I was a journalist for a long time before I started doing a partisan blog. Longer than you waited tables. I understand fairness. That's why I've structured VolPols.com as I have - so it will be completely and unassailably fair.

The site will be governed by a bi-partisan board. The only content on the site will be supplied by the legislators and their press secretaries, and comments submitted by readers.

Every legislator's blog at VolPols.com will share the identical template and design.

And VolPols.com will be inviting and encouraging EVERY legislator to blog at VolPols.com.

Please explain how, given that structure, the site can possibly be biased or slanted?

As I have structured it, there is only one way VolPols.com will have a partisan slant of any kind - and that will be if a whole lot of legislators from one party blog and only a few from the other party do. I don't expect that to happen, and we are trying to make sure it does not, but it remains up to the legislators themselves and their political and PR advisers to decide if they want to participate.

I hope they all do.

There are any number of ways the content could be edited by anyone with administrative access to the site. Now, obviously, you wouldn't do that. I'm just saying that it is entirely possible for you to, which makes a reader like me seriously question the material outright.

Hey! My comment disappeared.

Ah, well, I say what I said better here anyway.

I don't reed so gud.

Brittney - your comment did not disappear. Comments are held by the system until I weed out the spam.

Now, let's be logical about what you theorize above.

Do you think anything started by a non-liberal is suspect simply because it is started by a non-liberal? I doubt it.

So, let's consider what you suggested above:

If I, admittedly a conservative, were to go in and edit a liberal legislator's postings in order to make them look bad or change their meaning, the legislator would know it had been done, and would know that I or someone affiliated with VolPols.com had done it. The entire project would be instantly discredited.

I'm not building a partisan site with VolPols. I could have chosen to build the site as a hub for only Republican bloggers, but that wouldn't serve the purpose I'm seeking - which is to build a resource for the blogosphere and for the people of Tennessee, and to encourage more open communication between the people and their elected officials.

Brittany wrote:

"I would be wary of legislators blogging at a .com address rather than a .gov address."

That's funny. Through my years in journalism and in politics, I am wary of many things. One of them is liberal journalists-turned-commentators (or is that redundant, as they are already commenting on what they were supposed to be reporting?).

Bill Hobbs is trying to fix the disconnect between the Tennessee General Assembly and the electorate. He should be lauded, but instead you choose to berate him. Kinda hurts that whole "partisan politics is ruining everything and it's those big bad Republicans' fault" argument that the Left keeps throwing around.

Cheers,
Rob

Hold up: Who's berating anyone? I didn't berate anyone.

Thanks Bill. I'm hoping the legislator who emails me every time I criticize him on my blog will sign up for this worthy project.

Why not reveal the names of the 'conservative' and 'liberal' you chose to invite?

Since lefties and righties don't see eye to eye, I'd appreciate knowing how you define 'liberal'.

I really fail to see how anyone has been berated. And I think that Mr. Hobbs is missing the point. While I don't agree with many of Mr. Hobbs' political opinions, I think that, in general, his commentaries and reporting are good for the political process because they encourage more transparency. He pays attention to some of the minutia that I frankly find boring. In that way, he enhances transparency by adding his opinions.

I think that it is great that he has chosen to try to enable and encourage more communication between politicians and those they represent. But for that to work, the system needs both to be transparent and to appear to be transparent. I think that the method of introduction harms that perception even though it seems that Mr. Hobbs has in fact gone to great lengths to design the system in a non-partisan way.

I am not critical of your aspirations, just your presentation. For this venture to be a success, which I hope it will be, people need to not feel misled. I felt misled by the way you introduced the project, but I think that it was an attempt at coyness or something rather than anything sinister or covert.

Kevin, thanks for the thoughtful post. I intro'd the site with that coy tease just to have a little fun. The site has been structured to be open, transparent, etc. I'm sorry if I offended anyone with the coyness of the initial tease.

Egalia, I have chosen not to reveal who I have initially invited because they have not yet accepted (or in some cases responded) and I don't want to single any legislator out from either party.

I will within 14 days be sending a letter and/or an email to all 132 legislators introducing the site and inviting them to have a blog there. When that letter goes out, I also will post it on the site, and announce that all 132 legislators have been invited to join (although, technically, all already have been via the announcement here at this blog, and on VolPols.com itself).

Additionally at that time I hope to announce the bipartisan governance board for VolPols.