Comments on: About Those SC Lawmaker Emails

By: OutOfTown Constituent

OutOfTown Constituent — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:27:48 +0000

At first, I also didn’t like not having an email address to utilize, as I wanted to send my representative an email with an attachment. However, when I called the State House of Representatives via phone, the lady who answered was courteous and helpful, and when I explained what I needed to do, she gave me my representative’s actual email address. If I was just sending a message (text only), then the “new” system would have worked just fine for me. The new system will certainly help my representative receive the “individualized” email messages as someone mentioned earlier more efficiently. I would much rather know my representative read my message instead of missing it among the gazillion “copy and paste” messages. Sure, they need to hear from their constituents, and “volume” does help persuade them. However, I have seen these “copy and paste” plans backfire because they do not provide a “true” voice to an issue. So, if the new system will help our representatives truly hear from us, and weed out the “mass email overload,” then I am all for it. I appreciate FITSNews’ help with this, but like “UpstateChris” feel it has been blown out of proportion. The new system works well for standard messages. If there is something further that is needed, a simple phone call can give you what the public has a right to know.

By: UpstateChris

UpstateChris — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:15:38 +0000

This has been blown a bit out of proportion. I do not know what system they have migrated to, but other than a few I.T. man hours it is entirely possible that there were no costs involved. SC Legislative Printing has the email servers – has for years. To add an additional domain would have cost nothing. Possible switch from Novell to Microsoft? I am not familiar with the details, but I hardly think that the cost of any type of email migration would be newsworthy. I have done them many times for large organizations.
I won’t bother going into the 100 reasons why the state should not use Gmail – but the bottom line is that anyone that suggests this obviously does not work in I.T. – at least not above a Help Desk level – and has no understanding of security and retention requirements. I do not tell doctors where to cut, lawyers what to argue, etc., so please don’t pretend you have any idea about how I.T. works unless you have actually worked in the field at an ENTERPRISE level. And yes, I am very familiar with the commercial side of Google operations – not just the “free for personal use, beta public Gmail” system.

By: Bobby

Bobby — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:49:36 +0000

I don’t like a lot of the things FITS does, but this was a great service to the people of South Carolina. Thanks.

By: Elliott

Elliott — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:53:03 +0000

Thanks. I’ve saved these to a document and copied the disc.

By: John Fleming

John Fleming — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:46:15 +0000

The problem is many groups like the Realtors Assn will send a blast to all their members to email your legislator “support or oppose H Bill of S Bill such and such. There is nothing wrong with this, but part of that problem is they send them a cut and paste and the legislator gets 3000 emails saying the same thing, from 2900 people that don’t even live in their districts. Like form letters or junk mail or telemarketers, if it ain’t personal, why bother.

By: Heyward Harvin

Heyward Harvin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:54:53 +0000

Good work here, though. In the name of transparency.

By: Genomic Repairman

Genomic Repairman — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:49:38 +0000

courier72 you can negotiate with gmail to run the backbone of your email system as many other facilities do and are still able to maintain records compliance and probably better ones due to cloud computing.

By: mikedarwin

mikedarwin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:53:33 +0000

Last week I discovered that Senators and Congressmen also use such a system, and some almost hide the link to that email system. Some members of the federal legislature do make an actual address available, but it appears this number is declining. On the federal system you are “provided” a list of issues selected by the legislator. Guess even our elected representatives need to find some way to escape the open world of the internet.

By: DM

DM — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:00:12 +0000

Except – these no longer work.

By: courier72

courier72 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:56:21 +0000

Gmail in its free form would be unsuitable. State IT would have not way at all to ensure records compliance.