Capitol Hill websites fail to make grade

The websites of many lawmakers on Capitol Hill are below par, and few are doing anything about it, according to a new report.

While the Internet has dramatically changed American politics over the last decade, a “majority of [congressional] websites remain stagnant,” the report states.

{mosads}The so-called Gold Mouse Report, released Monday by the non-partisan Congressional Management Foundation (CMF), analyzed and ranked 618 House, Senate, committee, and leadership websites based on five major categories over three months: Clearly defining the site’s audience; tailoring the site’s information to the audience in a timely-fashion; the user-friendliness of the site; the ease and promotion of communication between user and the site; and the sites creative license while still maintaining user ease and interest.

The report provided each site with a letter grade, ranging from “A” to “F.”

Democratic members’ websites outranked Republican sites only slightly, with 61 percent of the Democratic sites obtaining “C”s or better compared to 55 percent of GOP sites.

From 2006 to 2007, the number of Democratic member sites with “C”s or higher increased by 3 percent while the number of Republican websites winning “C”s or higher fell by 7 percent. 

The CMF began analyzing congressional websites nine years ago with the intent to give members an understanding of how the Internet can assist them in communicating with their constituency and to look at how technology moves throughout the offices on the Hill.

“The awards were developed because we realized that we weren’t seeing the change that we were hoping to see in the quality of congressional websites,” said Tim Hysom, the director of communications and technology for the CMF. “And we thought one way to spur that change would be to award members who are doing really innovative things online. And now members are scrambling to improve their scores.”

Yet, 62.3 percent of the sites received a “C” or lower in 2007. As in 2006, the most common rank earned by congressional sites last year was a “D,” with the majority of the substandard sites from 2006 garnering similar grades in 2007. And 63 percent of member sites that received a “D” in 2006 scored a “D” or an “F” in 2007 while 42 percent of member sites that earned a “C” in 2006 scored lower in 2007.

The report found that “one-third of congressional sites do not have a functional search engine.”

Meanwhile, the websites of Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), as well as Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) have won Mouse awards every time they have been awarded.

“We think of the website as a service to the constituents, almost as a product,” said Jose Parra, communications director for Honda. “If you want your customers to be happy, you need to make sure that it’s up to date, useful and that it doesn’t lose its edge, so that people can get what they need in a timely manner.”

Other members whose websites were recognized in the report include Sens. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) and Reps. Tom Allen (D-Maine), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), John Larson (D-Conn.) and Heather Wilson (R-N.M.).

Instead of naming the lawmakers with inadequate websites in the report, the sites were ranked against each other in their corresponding category by chamber and party.

“Our desire is not to shame people into changing but to highlight the folks who are using the best practices and hold them up as examples,” Hysom said.

A surprising result, Hysom noted, was the 16 percent of freshmen who received with “A”s, garnering them a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Mouse Award.

Freshmen members whose websites graded highly included Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Reps. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), Christopher Carney (D-Pa.), Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.), Nick Lampson (D-Texas), Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), Earl Perlmutter (D-Colo.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

“When you’re a freshman, you come in and you’re trying to figure out where the bathrooms are, so it’s understandable that your website wouldn’t be your number one priority,” Hysom said. “So the offices who did excel were offices that clearly understand the value of online communication.”

According to www.internetworldstats.com, about 215 million people in the U.S. use the Internet on a daily basis.