Congress

According to the Washington Post, Congress is moving deeper into the world of web video, a tact the New Politics Institute has long advocated, but House member Kevin McCarthy has found that, in some cases, doing so breaks House rules.

More than 100 House members have multimedia pages and YouTube links on their Web sites -- all in violation of House rules that date to when lawmakers communicated with voters through snail mail and newsletters.

Amazingly, Rep. McCarthy and others have worked out a deal with YouTube whereby the tech giant will establish a commercial free section that Congress can use, which would put Congressional YouTube users back on the right side of this particular rule.

It's encouraging to see elected officials push further into the content creation side of web video. As George Allen and others have learned, it's probably better than solely being on the side where content is created against you.

As a non-partisan think tank and advocacy organization, NDN does not endorse candidates for federal office. But I do want to report in on a race that may be of great interest to many in our community. The long-time director of all of our path-breaking work in the Hispanic community, Joe Garcia, announced yesterday that he is running to unseat Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart in the Miami-based 25th Congressional District in Florida.

To check in to see how Joe is doing in his first 24 hours as a Congressional candidate check out this piece (which includes a very good local TV news story about his announcement) and visit his site.

As for the fate of our Hispanic work, look at the posts below about the historic Hispanic participation rates this year. Our new Vice President for Hispanic Programs, Andres Ramirez, is already making his mark with quick and strong analyses, and is, in the language of the day, fired up and ready to go.