Crowdsourcing is Simply Good Politics

State politicians are beginning to use the wisdom of the crowd to write legislation

Sarah Cove interviews Utah State Rep. Steve Urquhart on May 23, 2007

Utah Rep. Steve Urquhart was elected to the state Legislature in 2000. The Republican legislator has been exploring ways to to use Web 2.0 technology to engage his constituents in informing him and each other and in enriching political discussions. Urquhart began blogging at SteveU in November 2004. In January 2007, he started Politicopia a wiki where people can congregate and discuss issues and legislation. The wiki just completed its first legislative session, and Urquhart is planning the next iteration.

Q: What is crowdsourced politics?

Steve Urquhart: Crowdsourcing is simply good politics. ... Crowdsourcing goes back centuries. Even before Web 2.0 came along, a good politician would involve the public and constituents in political activities, and I don't mean just campaign activities. There's a big distinction. Politicians would go to people that were passionate politically and get them involved. They did so by providing research and information on bills, vetting information with them, and incorporating their input into the bills.

Q: Can you give me an example of this?

A: One of the best examples I can think of is when a member of the Utah Legislature from a rural area, Tom Hatch, would call down to Foy's Diner. They'd put him on speaker, and he would let them know what the Legislature was considering and ask for their feedback. So the folks that were sitting at the coffee counter, they would interact with him and tell him what they thought and how they thought it might affect their area. That was early crowdsourcing.

Q: Do you think Web 2.0 will change crowdsourced politics?

A: The basic functions of government will stay the same, but who is directing those activities will completely change. Right now, elected officials really have the luxury, or the curse, depending on how you want to look at it, to ignore the people. We pay attention to people during election cycles. But once we get elected, we ignore each other until the next election cycle comes along. The public generally has been OK with this arrangement. By that, I mean look at the actions where you see them banging down the gates demanding change. But I think Web 2.0 is making it so easy. The people who should be directing government — the citizens — are going to become a lot friskier, a lot more demanding, and a lot more in control.

Also, in going back to the example of Foy's Diner. I've been to Foy's many times, and that coffee counter holds about 15 people. Web 2.0 makes it easier to do crowdsourcing and outreach to the public. I think politics will move toward the style of Foy's Diner, but there will be many more seats at the table.

Q: So, when you entered into politics, did you have this collaborative understanding of what it meant to be a politician?

A: Yes, but it was uninformed. ... I thought that this involvement naturally happened. I thought that people were engaged in the political process and they just are not. I would hold town meetings and not many people would show up. And so I asked a lot of probing questions: "Why aren't you coming out to these? Can we do anything better or different?"

Well, the first thing I realized was people were busy and they need politics to be available to them on their time schedule, not on mine. Second, they expect people to be at those meetings that they don't want to spend time with. Third, they feel that they don't know enough to be there -- that they won't be able to follow the discussion or, heaven forbid, they might be asked a question they can't respond to. And that's why Web 2.0 is interesting. It allows for much better crowdsourcing in politics because I can present information on their time schedule.

Q: What are some examples of how you have used Web 2.0 to improve your crowdsourcing?

A: Well, I've done a lot of different things to try to encourage political dialog. I first had my static website where I'd say, "Here are some thoughts. Take a look and get back to me." And they could get back to me by e-mail. Then I had my blog -- which I've just really had a lot of fun with - and something called The Daily Debate, a site where I'd have the Attorney General and a legislator debate an issue and people could comment on it. I think that these both were beneficial. But I realized that they were too professorial. I'm at the head of the class saying, "OK, I'm going to talk about X." And they can comment on it, but they can really only talk about X because that's the topic I gave them. And the problem is maybe the readers don't care about X. They want to talk about Y, Z or limitless issues.

Politicopia is set up along the lines of Wikipedia. Anyone can just jump into the conversation, post a topic, begin a discussion, and collaborate together toward a potential outcome. They don't need anyone's permission to do so. And if they disagree with anything I or anyone else says on something they set up, they can go and change it. ... Right now, it's a wiki. This brings some opportunities but also some difficulties to non-techies. I think we had a successful beta run this past session, but we still have much further to go.

Q: So what are some of the problems you see?

A: I will give you a perfect example. I set up Politicopia, figured out how to do a few posts, and became comfortable with it. Then, as the session consumed more of my time, my intern, who was just great with technology, primarily put up the posts and tended the site. And I would go on and largely read the dialog and contribute some comments.

After the session ended, I lost my in-session intern. One night, I was going to post a quick entry. I had about 10 minutes to do it, but it took me 25. Some of that was just remembering the technology -- like how do I actually start a new page. And if that happens to me, the guy that set this up, I said, "Heavens. This helps explain why we haven't had broader participation."

So we need sites that are easy. Remember my first point, people are busy and if they encounter something that is going to take a few minutes to figure out, they probably won't do it. And then it just becomes an insider's dialogue amongst techies.

Also, there has to be a way for people to network better. That's where some people are helping me come up with some changes to Politicopia so people can identify their positions and then, if they encounter people who share those positions, they can link together. In politics, the sources of power are: first, clearer access to information, or understanding your facts; and second, organization, or being able to link with other people. That is something Politicopia currently lacks — the ability for people to form and grow networks to where many people can get together and manage change.

Q: Do you have any practical steps to make the site simpler?

A: Yes. Britt Blaser has a group called ORGware. They're helping to come up with some of the software that will make the site very intuitive. You look at Blogger now with all the functionality it has, and it is really becoming simple to set up your blog and post. That's where we need to take Politicopia in order to get broader participation.

Q: How are you considering expanding the participation in other sections of the site?

A: The software we are going to have out in the next two months will allow people to put up their own page. You can think about it to some degree like a MySpace for politics. So, yes, a person can identify themselves or be identified as an expert in some area. Someone could say, "I'm an expert in school issues. My background is here. My political activity is here. So listen to what I have to say." Or a group, like the Education Association could set up a site.

One of the main beneficial things we are building is that your comments will track you. ... A person can go to the dialogue page, and identify themselves with their commentary and proposed changes to the legislation. Then, we could go over to their site and see who they are, and if they are someone we should listen to. We think that identifying who a contributor is based on their content, rather than by some label they might have, is a pretty neat way of seeing if this person is reasonable or apt to fly off the handle.

Q: Why did you decide to take this strategy?

A: I've been involved in a lot of these conversations where people are saying, "How do we know if it's accurate information? Let's come up with a panel of experts." I don't believe in the panel of experts as being represented in terms of degrees or awards. I really do believe in the wisdom of crowds and I think experts, especially in the political arena, identify themselves through their private actions in the political arena. Have they contributed in a meaningful way to a political solution?

Q: Are you thinking of doing something like Digg or del.icio.us on Politicopia in that there could be a communal ranking of interesting comments?

One is when you set up your page, we're going to invite you to identify your political leanings. There will be many topics you can pick from -- like your position on abortion, gun rights or education. You can pick as many as you want or you can list others if we haven't hit the right one. Digg functionality will rank them all, and display the top ten.

There will also be Digg functionality on the comments. You can rank those you see as most beneficial in Dialog A, Dialog B or Dialog C. Then the community will help sort through what is the best advice on these issues.

Q: David Weinberger wrote a book recently called Everything is Miscellaneous. It talks about how categorizing information on the Internet is happening now through tags which are determined by the users, and thus oriented to specific users' concerns. Do you think that crowdsourced politics is going to move in a direction where what we view as of political importance will be done based on tagging?

A: Yes, is my answer. And I'd say it always has been such. Even before 2.0 stuff really got rolling, I and most politicians operated on a system of tagging. I know, for example, if we have an issue that comes up on education, this group of people has told me they want to be involved in that. If something comes up on taxes, this group of people has told me they want to be involved in that. So they have tagged those issues, be it by a face-to-face conversation or through e-mails. And by doing that, I can see who comes back with good suggestions and advice. Those are the people I tend to listen to first and foremost.

Q: Do you or other politicians have any plans of expanding Politicopia to other states?

A: My answer's yes. The technology we come up will be really cool. I think it will be a very beneficial tool and I think it almost has to be expanded to other states. ... States really are laboratories for democracy, and hopefully we aren't repeating the same mistakes. Hopefully, we are looking at other states, and their experiences in some other areas, and then we're improving upon those experiments that they undertook. It makes sense to have all that information on the site to talk back and forth with communities built up in other states.

Q: Do you have any plans of expanding to the federal level?

A: The federal level would also become part of this because that's what most people are interested in. It has such a huge impact. However, my passion is with the state and the local governments. I look at things like Front Porch Forum and think of the good that Web 2.0 can do on the local level. I think that's really where we are going to see some significant actions take place, and based on what we learn there, we'll eventually do better things at the federal level.

Q: Going back to the state level, how have your colleagues in the Utah House responded to Politicopia and your blog?

A: I think my fellow members enjoy the blog. During the session, I have quite a few readers in the body. They often come up and talk to me about things that are on there, and this has sometimes bumped the discussion forward a bit.

Q: Have any of your colleagues critiqued your blog?

A: Early on, there was some criticism along the lines of "Why are you doing this? Do we really want to be airing all this stuff out to the public?" and I said, "Yes, it's something I'm going to do. If you have any issues with the content, you can talk to me privately or you can jump into the comments. And if you disagree with me, of course we can have those debates in committees and on the floor. But this is something I'm going to do, and if you are around in ten years, it is something you are going to be doing too."

Q: So if you had to tell a colleague what their role and responsibilities as a political representative in a world of Web 2.0 crowdsourced politics would be, what would you say?

A: Well, their responsibilities, first and foremost, would be to represent the will of their constituents. There are a couple of things involved in that. First, you have the responsibility of making sure your people are informed on the issue. And that's a huge challenge, because if they are only reading the newspaper or only watching TV, they probably are not that informed. Those are pretty superficial mediums. And so you have the obligation to help inform them. We used to do that with the occasional mailer or town meeting. But mailers don't have enough space to handle everything. And with town meetings, people largely don't go. So online, you have a great opportunity to inform them.

Second, you need to make sure that you have the benefit of their opinions. This is the exact same thing in opposite. Previously, they could attend your town meetings, they could call you, they could write to you. Now, they have the ability to talk back and forth, they can reach a consensus and then deliver you this wonderful package of information. Those are the big things I would tell a colleague. Take this opportunity to make sure your constituents have information and make sure that you have their opinions on the issues.

Q: So you mentioned the role of the representative in crowdsourced politics. How would you develop the role and responsibilities of the citizen in this new, more collaborative space?

A: First off, I would hope that the citizens would want to be much more engaged. To some degree, I think we can understand apathy in the past. Then, it was somewhat difficult to weigh into a debate, and to help direct the outcome, simply because it took a lot of time. Now it takes a lot less time to weigh in, so I hope citizens would commit to being more engaged and would take the opportunity to get informed on issues. Again, this is much easier now. You don't just have to read the editorial, you can go from there to primary sources. The third thing would be the ability to bring others into the process, to network out, to talk to neighbors and friends, to get them involved with the information that has been gathered, and to bring them into the process.

Q: Do you agree with critiques that the political blogosphere is being dominated by those on the extremes of the issue?

A: I met Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur. He's a digital dissenter and his premise is that political blogging is just a lot of noise out on the fringes. Right now, I do hear so much noise out there. To the extent that Web 2.0 just enables the fringes to agitate and become louder, that could be a cancer on the system that further disgusts everyone else not on the fringes.

Q: If this is the case, how are different incentives going to bring in new contributors to the dialogue?

A: That's what I talked about last week at the Personal Democracy Forum. I'm an optimist. I think that the people who are not on the fringes have a lot of passion, but they just haven't had a great way to express their voice. Web 2.0 gives them that opportunity and I think they will seize it and bring politics back to the bulk of the people.

And I think that it's really the responsibility of the individuals when they engage with politics to make sure that their contribution is substantive. But it is all too easy to be out on the fringes; that's where the accolades, money, and power are. And the media tens to occupy one or the other extreme. It's very difficult for a politician to operate in the middle because, there, everyone is shooting at you. So when, as a politician, you walk towards the center, that's scary territory.

And that's what I have found to be the liberating thing about technology. I think my constituents have liked the a clearer view of what I do and I think that it really has enabled me, on a couple of issues, to walk towards the center, realizing that my constituents will know what I'm doing, and why I'm doing it, no matter what the media might tell them otherwise.

Q: Do you have any examples of how your blog or Politicopia have helped you to bring discussions from the fringes and produce negotiation in the center?

A: Yes. I have three. The first one is from the 2006 session. We had a bill that blew through the Senate that would have required our high schools to teach evolution in science only if they taught divine design, which I think is a fancy word for creationism. I go to church every Sunday; I believe in God and in what I read in Genesis about the creation of the world, but I think that material is better taught in a Sunday school class than our public high schools. So I had a discussion happening on my blog, as was happening on many blogs, that jumped into what is divine design, what does it mean, what is the role of religion in science, and so on. And it was a rich discussion. I think just because of the discussion that was going on online, was able to kill that bill in the house.

This year, as I've been mentioning before, we had a bill for school vouchers that we'd lost for six years in a row, because some people in the education community said it would financially destroy public education. I was able to call out the Chairman of the Board of Education on Politicopia saying, "Here's your letter where you say this will hurt public education. Here's why I think you are wrong. Is there anything else you want to say about this or am I right?" This was in a public forum and he realized people were watching. The state school board abandoned that rhetoric of financial ruination. Once we got past that myth, it was easy to focus on the substance on the bill. It actually passed and two Reps told me that they voted for it because of the dialog they saw on my site and online.

Finally, someone was running an abortion bill that Utah would challenge Roe v. Wade. Utah is a very conservative state and so it's tough to impossible to say, "Wait, let's pull this issue back away from the fringe." But online, I said, "We challenged Roe v. Wade several years ago, it cost us 1 or 2 million dollars then. Do we really want to be the ones to do it again? Why not let someone else challenge it, and let's pass something saying if it is challenged we will change our law." And that's where we ended up, again because the online discussion brought the public more into the debate.

Q: Have you seen or do you see any segmentation between politicians that are engaging with their constituents on the level of Web 2.0 and those that aren't?

A: Yes. I really do. I had a conversation with one Representative this past session where I said, "I wrote about this on my blog a couple of weeks ago," and he was quick to say , "Well, I don't read blogs," as if it were a badge of honor. And it shows. I think that Rep. is not in touch with the public.

Q: And why would avoiding blogs be a problem politically?

A: There are great political discussions occurring, and honestly not many of them are happening in the halls of the legislature. Now, I think we are having good discussions in our committee rooms and in the chambers on some issues. We'll occasionally have robust discussions in the chamber. But I would say the best dialogs are happening online, and if a politician isn't paying attention to what's being said online, this politician is missing the boat.

Q: Some politicians I have watched are using tools like blogs or YouTube in a mass media style instead of as means of unsettling and enriching their discussions and positions. Do you notice these critiques as missed opportunities, and if so, what could you tell these politicians that "don't get it"?

A: Yeah. And some of those critiques, I have to say, have been pointed my way -- that I use my blog just to get out my propaganda points. And if people don't agree with me, they then quickly move on to the next topic . I sure hope that's not the case, but that's what we talked about earlier -- blogging is too professorial. It gives me, or any politician, too big an opportunity to do exactly that.

Everything I do online is in response to what has failed previously, and that's why Politicopia now is a wiki. If you don't like what I'm saying, change it, start your own page, start your "Urquhart is an Idiot" page, I'm not going to delete it. I'm a huge believer in representative democracy and think beautiful things can happen in the process. I believe that people should be elected to have good conversations and reach compromised decisions. But I sure don't think the moment we're elected, we all the sudden are given all the knowledge that is out there. I have to vote on about 500 issues every year, and, truth be told, I probably would consider myself an expert on 10 of those. So if I'm not going to the public to really look for information, then what's the basis for my vote?

Q: So, in my understanding, image and reputation are some of the most important capital for a politician. And the Internet -- where massive amounts of people control who you are and your identity -- is a riskier space for politicians and their identities. I was wondering if this phenomenon is making your work more challenging, more interesting, more genuine?

A: Yeah, I'd say more genuine. But I'm going to disagree with the premise of your question that the online world is riskier. I think it's more rewarding. A big risk is when you talk to a journalist, did that journalist understand what the heck you were talking about, and which quotes is he or she going to take? You might have a half-hour discussion, and maybe that person really disagrees with you on the issue and they've spent that whole half hour waiting for you to say one stupid thing. Well, on the Internet, if I have an important issue and I want my people to understand it, I can go to YouTube and put up a little five-to-ten minute podcast. If anyone wants to challenge me saying Urquhart thinks such and such on an issue, I'll say, "No. A year ago, I did this podcast. You are distorting the record. Here's exactly what I think."

And again, I think that isn't confining or dangerous to an elected official in any way. I think instead it is fully liberating. Politicians can take greater risks because they aren't as worried what the editorial board will have to say about it. Let's say you are going to do something risky, anything different on immigration, social security, abortion, guns, -- all issues for which people's passions burn bright. If an editorial board or local TV station doesn't agree with what you are trying to do, they can snuff out that idea so fast. They can make you look so stupid in a heartbeat that you are white-hot. No one can have a conversation with you on that issue. But if you can talk around them and say, "I know this is a tough issue. We haven't come up with answers for decades. And I think that's because the dialogue has been silly; it's been superficial and dominated by the fringes. Here's my idea. I talked with these people in my community who think it's a good idea." At that point, you've really put a tether on the media. Do they really want to go pick out a quote here or there when people, who have the full record in front of them, can fact-check the media?

Q: The next question comes watching the various political debates that have been going on for the next presidential race. The only way I can assess a candidate from these forums comes from the candidate's word for how things are - whether they did or didn't do something. Their record is based in their own story. How can crowdsourced politics change the way in which citizens are able to make assessments about their representatives?

A: A few things come to mind. With crowdsourcing, we have a dramatically increased ability to look at their record, to look at what they have done in the past, to look at what they have said in the past. I mean, already in this campaign you are seeing candidates trying to take positions where, almost immediately, people are accessing clips -- statements they have said in the past -- and they are being beat up about those things. So I think it's demanding more honesty on the part of candidates. They need to either admit that they've switched their position or need to somehow justify that. I think that's one of the first things.

Secondly, I think that it is going to change radically if people's elected officials aren't reaching out to them. When a citizen sees their neighbors' and their cousins' elected officials doing so, they'll get rid of their politician, and they will have the tools to do that more easily. I think where you now see candidates reaching out only during campaigns, they'll be reaching out to the same degree when it comes to actually governing. That should be a good thing.

Finally, and I don't know where we are doing this well, but I think if we can figure it out, the technology gives us the opportunity to truly pin candidates down for answers. f you look at a television debate, not much is said there. The point is to look like you're in command, look like you are confident, get in a few zingers and don't say anything stupid. And you'll notice that I didn't say be substantive, because I don't really think that is rewarded in televised debates. However, online, if people are more in control of things, they can say, "Senator, you didn't actually answer the question I asked on what specifically you plan to do on health care. I don't see one specific in there. Will you please get back to me?" And if it's just me writing the Senator with that question, he's going to blow me off, he's not going to answer it. If 100 of us attach our name to that letter saying we all want to know, we'll amplify that. And what if there are 10,000? Or what if 100,000 of us say, "Senator, are you shining us on? Why didn't you answer this question? Do you have any substantive responses?" So that's where I'm optimistic. Candidates can be pinned down more easily, and hopefully candidates and office holders will be more transparent and accessible in what they do.

(Edited by Michelle McLellan)