The nation is unified as it mourns the loss of a Senate icon. Edward M. Kennedy, elected to office nine times, was the third longest-serving member of the United States Senate in American history, representating Massachusetts in the Senate for 47 years. The Boston Globe has a full tribute.
Sen. Kennedy’s son, Patrick, is a Representative in Congress from Rhode Island, and his nephew, Joe Kennedy, is a former Representative from Massachusetts.
A special election will be held in sometime in the next 5 months, and the winner will complete Sen. Kennedy’s term, which ends in 2012.
Sen. Kennedy’s brother, the late President John F. Kennedy, held this Senate seat for eight years before being elected to the White House in 1960.
Rally Congress will hold all messages for Sen. Kennedy until the seat is filled, and deliver them at that time.
2 years ago
California’s 32nd District, which stretches across eastern Los Angeles, lost its representative when Rep. Hilda Solis resigned in February to become the Secretary of Labor for the Obama Administration. The seat was filled today by Judy Chu (D-CA), who won in a specical election on July 14th, and was sworn in on July 16, 2009.
Rep. Chu was previously a state assembly member and an educator— she holds a Ph.D. in psychology and a B.A. in mathematics.
2 years ago
The Minnesota Supreme Court yesterday ruled in Al Franken’s favor, ending months of litigation over the contested Senate seat. The result means the Senate will finally have a full complement of 100 Senators. Senate leaders are indicating that Sen.-Elect Franken will be officially sworn in as soon as next week.
Rally Congress has been holding all messages sent this year and will deliver them once Senator-Elect Franken is up and running in the weeks ahead!
2 years ago
Two or three folks from our strategy and business development team will be attending the Personal Democracy Forum Conference at the end of the month. The conference is a great time and a good opportunity to hear the latest thinking in the political internet space. We’d love to connect with you while we are in New York City — if you are attending the conference and want to grab a cup of coffee just shoot us an email: info@rallycongress.com.
2 years ago
Rally Congress is rolling out a new feature today— clean, black and white printer friendly .pdf files (here’s an example) of your petition are now available from a link at the bottom of the petition page.
We’ve had a number of requests for this feature. Folks are telling us they post Rally Congress petitions at work and hand them out at meet-ups and rallies. The printer friendly version will now allow your supporters to easily print and distribute the latest version of your petition offline!
2 years ago
The Obama Administration today rolled out the “Office of Public Engagent” or OPE with a new web site at http://www.whitehouse.gov/ope/ . (hat tip: Personal Democracy Forum ) The OPE also released a new 33-page Citizens Briefing Book with the final results of the user-submissions and votes on policy ideas during the transition last winter. The document also includes some word clouds and user comments. For kicks, here’s the “technology” word cloud:
2 years ago
Currently, 137 members of the House and Senate require a phone number in order to process an incoming email. The Rally Congress system asks for this information at the last step before sending, and only if one of the user’s officials requires it.
By popular demand, Rally Congress now tells users which Representatives and/or Senators are requiring a phone number. Here’s a shot of the new interface in action:
2 years ago
Oprah and even President Obama are now on Twitter, so Rally Congress is working to help you join the conversation in more effective ways.
“Hash tags” are one way Twitter users organize discussions. Now, Rally Congress petition managers can also create hash tags for their organization and petitions, and Rally Congress will automatically insert those tags when site visitors post to Twitter from a petition page.
This should significantly expand the audience for your petition on Twitter!
You create a hash tag simply by prefixing a short word or abbreviation with a hash symbol: #hashtag. Tags should be used sparingly— one is fine and never more than two or three for your organization or issue. A good approach is to come up with a specific hash tag for your campaign or organization, and add a second one for your more general issue set.
A great resource to search for existing tags and track the progress of your hash tags is http://hashtags.org.
2 years ago
Notice the “Bookmark” button at the top right of your petition pages?
A new report in your Rally Congress control panel tracks when users click one of these “bookmark” or “share” links. When the user clicks on the link it carries them to the third party site (i.e. Facebook) and pre-populates that site’s submit form with your petition link.
Links from popular sites back to your petitions will increase your traffic and improve your ranking with search engines. This new report gives you a good idea of which social networking sites are popular with your users and which might need more attention.
Here’s a screenshot to give you some of flavor:
2 years ago
This weekend Scott Murphy was declared the winner in a tight special election in this Albany-area district. The office became vacant when the governor appointed Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to fill New York’s junior Senate seat. Once Representative-elect Murphy is seated, there will only be one vacancy in the House (CA -32), and one in the Senate— the Minnesota Senate battle continues in the courts.
2 years ago
