Mark Hannah has a thoughtful post about how the Obama administration and Congress are adopting what he terms “Direct to Constituent” communications --  a governing variation of the corporate “direct to consumer” communications --   letting government officials bypass filters such as the press. It has fascinating possibilities and not just for government.

Of course one of the best examples of this was candidate Obama’s collection of 13 million email addresses enabling that political operation to communicate with a very broad audience without the mediation of the press. As it moves forward there's been quite a lot written about how that operation continues within the DNC to advance the administration's agenda.

It will be interesting to keep an eye on this trend: looking at which politicians in Congress and which agency heads embrace this new platform, who understands this new trend and who truly gets it as a two-way opportunity. So far, it has been largely a one-way conversation. (To wit Obama's Saturday You-Tube Fireside Chats)

At Sunlight we keep a close eye on the active Twitters like U.S. Rep. John Culberson and engage with them as they tell the story of the day to day passage of legislation. It's a story the press would never tell but it has the ring of authenticity and immediacy that we come to expect on the Web.

Yesterday, the Congressional Management Foundation released the report, Communicating with Congress: How the Internet Has Changed Citizen Engagement, in which they reported on a survey of over 10,000 citizens about their interactions and communications with member of congress.

Of the report's findings, what caught my interest is CMF's statement that the Internet is now the primary source citizens use to follow and communicate with Congress. Their research found that 92 percent of Internet users who had contacted Congress had visited a member of Congress' Web site.  And a plurality (43 percent) of citizens contacting Congress did so using online methods, which is twice the percentage that used snail mail or telephones. Obviously, this was bound to happen...not surprisingly it seems like we reached this milestone pretty fast.

CMF also found that almost half of adult Americans (44 percent) contacted Congress in the last five years to support, oppose or learn more about issues of interest to them. This is a much higher contact rate than a report in 2004 which found that 18 percent of Americans had contacted Congress.

According to CMF, other findings include:

• The majority of people surveyed do not believe Congress is interested in what they have to say, but they want Members' to keep them informed of their views and activities and of the policy issues being debated in Washington.
• Those who had contacted Congress tended to be more politically active in other ways than those who had not.
• A majority of people who contacted Congress had been asked to do so by a third party - primarily through interest groups - and they place a high value on the role of advocacy campaigns in our democracy.

Along the same lines, U.S. Rep. John R. Kuhl (R-N.Y.)launched a couple weeks ago his "Fix Washington" project where he is soliciting online input on ideas for bills to introduce. On July 18^th he will take what he considers the best five ideas and put them up on the site so users can vote for their favorite.  It's definitely an interesting experiment. Kuhl's experiment is one more example of how some lawmakers are really starting to get it.