New York Times technology reporter Brian Wingfield has an extremely interesting article in Thursday's issue on the new big thing in Congress: blogging.

The nonprofit Congressional Management Foundation, which helps educate Congress on running its business, says at least four members - Mr. Pence; Representatives Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois, and Katherine Harris, Republican of Florida; and Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont - have taken up the task on a continuing basis. (Others have used temporary blogs to document trips, said Brad Fitch, the foundation's deputy director.)

The Congressional bloggers praise the power, popularity and potential of blogging, citing it as one of the most frequently visited parts of their Congressional Web sites.

"It shows your constituents that you're going to be updating your Web site regularly, and the next time they log on, they will see something new," Mr. Kirk said.

While popular political blogs like Wonkette, MyDD and Daily Kos serve as an alternative to traditional news sources and allow their authors to purvey commentary, Congressional blogs are extremely tame. In many cases, staff members - not the legislators themselves - post entries, and they rarely link to other blogs, as most blogs do.

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At this stage, he added, members of Congress are primarily experimenting with blogs as a creative means to reach voters, not as a way to attract the attention of the blogosphere - the bloggers' realm, which can sometimes be an incubator of ideas and news. "The Hill has yet to really reach that level of sophistication" with the Internet, he said, but "there are people that do get it."

Blogging can be great for the American Democracy, even if it's now in it's infancy on the Hill. The more interaction the American people can have with their representatives, the more responsive Congress will be to the will of the American people.