Rally Congress

Special Elections Fill House Seats CA-10 and NY-23

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:11:42 -0500

The U.S. House of Representatives returned to its full complement of 435 members as voters in California’s 10th and New York’s 23rd District filled those vacant offices.

The nation’s newest Congressmen won’t have much time to relax. Rep-elect John Garamendi is flying to Washington today from northern California, and Rep-elect Bill Owens is heading down from New York for their formal swearing-in ceremony.

Rally Congress has updated the system and will begin delivery of all messages once these new Reps. have set up communications channels.

Senate Seats Paul G. Kirk, Jr. from Massachusetts

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:44:47 -0400

The U.S. Senate is back to a full membership of 100 as the Massachusetts Governor selected attorney Paul Kirk, Jr. to temporarily fill late Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat until a special election is held in early 2010.

New Florida Senator George S. LeMieux Sworn-in

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:57:00 -0400

Today, the U.S. Senate swore in George LeMieux as Florida’s thirty-fourth Senator. He replaces retiring Senator Mel Martinez, whose term ends next year.

Sen. LeMieux is a Florida attorney and former chief of staff to Florida Governor Charlie Crist. Sen. LeMieux says he will not run for the seat in 2010.

Retiring Sen. Martinez No Longer Accepting Constituent Email

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:19:23 -0400

Florida Senator Mel Martinez, who announced earlier this summer that he plans to retire as soon as Florida Gov. Charlie Crist announces a replacement, is no longer accepting constituent email at http://martinez.senate.gov.

Rally Congress will hold all messages for Sen. Martinez until a replacement is seated, and will deliver them at that time.

Senator Kennedy, “Lion of the Senate," Passes Away at 77

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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.

Rep. Judy Chu Joins Congress, Representing CA-32

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0400

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.

Senator-Elect Al Franken Completes 111th Senate

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:02:04 -0400

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!

Rally Congress Attending Personal Democracy Forum

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:09:00 -0400

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.

Sharing Petitions Offline-- a .pdf for Downloading

Fri, 15 May 2009 11:37:00 -0400

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!

White House Launches Office of Public Engagement

Mon, 11 May 2009 17:21:00 -0400

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:

Improvements in Telephone Handling

Wed, 06 May 2009 06:31:59 -0400

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:

Rally Congress and Automatic Twitter Hash Tags

Sat, 02 May 2009 14:51:53 -0400

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.

New Feature: Social Network Links

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:18:37 -0400

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:

Rep.-Elect Scott Murphy Wins Nail Biter in New York's 20th

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 09:21:00 -0400

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.

2009 Politics Online Conference Photos

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 19:15:00 -0400

A great time was had by all! Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth and to the organizers of the conference at George Washington University and Campaigns & Elections. See you again next year!

Rep. Mike Quigley Fills Illinois 5th District Seat

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:48:00 -0400

Yesterday Congress swore in the Honorable Mike Quigley, who fills the open 5th District of Illinois after winning a special election earlier this month. The seat became open when Rep. Rahm Emanuel joined the Obama Administration last winter. Congrats to Rep. Quigley— we’ve got a backlog of letters waiting for you!

Sponsoring the 2009 Politics Online Conference

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:19:00 -0400

We’ve just finished two days at the annual Politics Online Conference in downtown Washington, DC, where we sponsored and had a table to demo the Rally Congress platform. We had a great time. Photos and details to follow!

A Few Tweaks to the Control Panel

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:18:49 -0400

Clients logging in to their control panel may notice a few changes today. We’ve created a new box for “System-wide” adjustments that impact all pages on your site. These include uploading a logo or header image, changing the color scheme of your Rally Congress pages and title text, and editing the default forward-to-friend text. Hopefully this improved layout will make managing the system even easier!

Easter Server Upgrades!

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:55:34 -0400

The Rally Congress team was up before dawn yesterday as we migrated the entire technical platform and all client databases to a new set of servers. We did the move on the holiday to minimize the disruption and downtime, and to do it when the system was least busy.

The move was smooth and the result are web pages that are even faster than ever! The new capactity will also allow us to handle even heavier weekday peak load. The migration is part of our long-term investment plan and will support new features for you in 2009.

Adding Guam's Delegate Madeleine Bordallo

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:36:00 -0400

We’ve just added support for Guam zip codes and emails to Congresswoman Bordallo after several requests from Guam residents. Of course, for U.S. servicemen and women temporarily serving abroad, the best thing is to send email to the officials representing your permanent address.

Guam, of course, is a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean— “Where America’s Day Begins!”