It appears that at least three current members of the House of Representatives are actively using Twitter. And, unlike some of the early political blogs which were ghost-written, it appears that these are the actual members, not their staffs.
Guitar-playing GOP congressman Thad McCotter (R-MI) can be found at @thadmccotter.
Democrat Tim Ryan (D-OH), who showed up last week on Mr. Scoble Goes to Washington, can be tracked at @timryan.
Texas Republican John Culberson, by far the most active tweeter of the three, can be found at @johnculberson.
It's interesting to see how they are each using the technology.
Ryan is not following anyone; he's simply using it as a broadcast tool to his 333 followers. But he seems to get the technology. He's not pushing out campaign messages; instead, he uses it to simply answer the initial twitter question "what are you doing?". Ryan is a newbie and only has 43 tweets to-date, but looks as though he's tweeting a few times a day. A few of his recent tweets were:
Voting on the price gouging prevention act.
and
I just voted against the fisa bill. Our
Constitution is a sacred document. The fourth amendment barely exists
now. Let's stand strong here.
Ryan generally posts via his Blackberry using Twitterberry, while the others are using the web client.
McCotter is following 400 people while he has 254 followers. I'm surprised that he is following more people than he has followers. He's only posted 48 tweets so far and most are just his speaking schedule, such as:
tune in tonight at 5:15 on Fox's Just In with Laura Ingraham
or
currently on Dennis Miller show
Culberson is the grandaddy of the congressional tweeters, having posted more than 530 tweets. He's the only one of the three who seem to be having true twitter conversations and many of his tweets are @ replies. Culberson is the congressman who posted a Qik video interview last week - you can see the full details on his Qik page. Looking at how he's willing to debate users via twitter, I'm only surprised he hasn't yet weighed in on the Shel Israel - Loren Feldman feud (or maybe he has).
Is any of this meaningful? Probably not. But during an election campaign where one candidate acknowledges that he's never touched a computer, it's good to know that some of the folks in Washington are early adopters.
