House GOP debuts social site for policy ideas

“This is about listening to people today,” Boehner said. “I would expect
ideas to come out of this website and the involvement of our members
will lead to ideas that we can attempt to implement today.”

In an earlier interview with CNN, McCarthy expressed high hopes for the site’s potential.

“To me it’s revolutionary, because it allows the
individual to have greater control and say. For too long, people think
nobody in Washington listens to them. This starts listening across the
country and lets them provide the idea, but also debate the idea.”

Anyone can use the site to debate or submit ideas, but that doesn’t mean congressional Republicans will automatically adopt the most popular proposals — bad news for liberals or other groups that may consider trying to game the system. Users will accumulate points, similar to the most-frequent-commenters systems used at some popular online publications.

“It’s not
‘American Idol,’ [where] the top vote count gets it. This is about having a
real discussion to solve a problem,” McCarthy said.