Thanks to everyone who helped develop the talking points for the session at yesterday’s NCSL conference. I hope we changed some minds.

Perhaps the most interesting/challenging comment came from my co-presenter Steve Urquhart, a Republican rep from Utah who has been blogging since 2004. “As a legislator, you can either do [interactive internet communication] with your voters or they will do it to you.” (Visit his blog. He’s funny and always thought provoking. And, like other online lawmakers, he believes strongly in the power of this new technology to open up democracy.)

So thanks for your thoughts. It was a lively conversation and we only heard one “I’m too busy, I can’t even answer my email, it’s too hard anyway” comment.

So perhaps progress is being made.