The Network Connection

When George Bush left the Whitehouse, there reportedly was only one rotary dial phone on the President's desk in the Oval office. Times have quickly changed. The Whitehouse now runs on E-mail and regardless of what you think of the current political situation, you have to admire the amount of government information resources that have appeared on the Internet. Information is key to the effective operation of a participatory democracy, and the Internet has opened up a world of easily accessible information. State governments and smaller political units too have embraced Internet technology, so from city council minutes to state services, keeping up with your local government is now easier as well.

U.S. on Line

All three branches of the Federal Government are represented on the Internet. The Executive branch is most visibly represented by the Whitehouse home page at http://www.whitehouse.gov/. This page offers information about the President and Vice President as well as a virtual tour of the Whitehouse itself. Another significant resource on this page is the Interactive Citizen's Handbook. It allows you to search the Whitehouse Web server, search all government web servers for a particular piece of information, access links to Cabinet offices or other government branches, or browse though various topical information ranging from education to housing.

The legislative branch is represented by two web sites: http://www.house.gov/ is the web site for the House of Representatives and http://www.senate.gov/ is the site for the Senate. Both sites have biographical information about the representatives as well as historical information and information about the legislative process. Another web site which supports legislative information is run out of the Library of Congress. The service is call "Thomas" after Thomas Jefferson, and includes a great deal of legislative information as well as on-line copies of the Congressional Record. You can access it at http://thomas.loc.gov/. Don't overlook the main Library of Congress page as well (http://www.loc.gov/). It is a valuable link to all kinds of information.

The Judicial branch also has a web presence. You'll find their page at http://www.uscourts.gov/. You'll find information about the various courts, a description of how the courts operate, a directory of on-line judicial information, and many other items. Some judicial information is also available from non-government sources. You can find copies of the Supreme Court decisions from Cornell University at http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/. Emory University has created a Federal Courts finder page which allows you to find which district court has jurisdiction in your area (see http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDCTS/).

A large amount of Governmental agency information can be found via the FedWorld page at http://www.fedworld.gov/. This web site, maintained by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), provides access to various government reports, tax information, and a listing of all Federal Government jobs. Some non-government web sites also provide good government contact information. The site, http://www.netrus.net/users/peace/govt_em.htm, lists E-mail addresses for the President, Vice President, and all members of Congress and each address is a mailto: link which makes it easy to send a quick message. A more general information page about contacting the U.S. Congress is found at http://ast1.spa.umn.edu/juan/congress.html and yet another approach is offered by a page named "The Zipper" at http://www.voxpop.org/zipper/: it will return the name and address of your Congressperson based on the Zipcode you provide.

State Stuff

State Governments are also on the Web and you can access any of the state web pages available from another of the Library of Congress pages: http://lcweb.loc.gov/global/state/stategov.html. This page also includes information about state government in general and a link to maps of the individual states.

Texas' main web page is found at http://www.texas.gov/ and includes various types of information, from tourism to State agencies. A couple of other interesting Texas web sites are the Comptroller's "Window on State Government" (http://www.window.texas.gov/), the Attorney General's page (http://www.oag.state.tx.us/), and of course, the Lottery results (http://www.window.state.tx.us/txgovinf/txlottery.htm). The Texas page (www.texas.gov) also has links to county and municipal information.

Community Info.

To find out if your community is on the World Wide Web, a good place to start looking is at the USA CityLink Project page (http://www.usacitylink.com/). CityLink is reported to have listings for more cities and states than any other site on the web.

Conclusion

From your city to Washington, chances are your government's on the Web. Now go, participate!

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