Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

The Monday edition of the Nashville City Paper takes a look at how constant video coverage of Tennessee's state legislature is starting to impact how lawmakers do business - and how the public sees them.

With the principle of open government in mind, this year, the General Assembly has live, streaming video via its Web site of every House and Senate floor session as well as each committee and subcommittee meeting. In addition, after the meeting or floor session is concluded, a video archive of that event is kept on the General Assembly's Web site. As a result, no matter if a reporter or a television camera was in the room, a video record was made. And that video record causes some lawmakers, like Black, to be on guard against saying something regretful.

That's because if something slips or an embarrassing moment occurs, the General Assembly's video stream feeds allow willing bloggers, enterprising reporters and crafty campaign strategists to capitalize on that video.

Already, some bloggers are putting the video trove to good use.

One person who's tuning in often is Ben Cunningham, the founder of Tennessee Tax Revolt. Cunningham uses the legislature's video streaming to keep a close eye on lawmakers and which bills are being discussed. He also uses software to splice short, 30-second or so clips from a two-hour committee meeting to post on his blog or on the Web site www.YouTube.com.

The City Paper notes Cunningham's role in posting the video of one state senator implicitly admitting he might employ illegal aliens at his west Tennessee cotton mill in declaring he had a conflict of interest on a bill regarding limiting the hiring of illegal immigrants. Another clip Cunningham posted recently: video from a committee meeting where lawmakers continually giggled about a bill prohibiting a state prisoner exposing his buttocks or genitals to a prison guard.

 

Cunningham said the Legislature's video streaming is "revolutionary" and noted that, because sessions and committee meetings are video-recorded, "there's a record there that the citizens can go back to any time now."

Already, says state legislator Stacey Campfield, who maintains a daily blog, campaign ads-makers are stockpiling video clips for future campaigns.

I have no doubt that Campfield, the only regularly-blogging member of the Tennessee legislature, is right about that.

I'm not amazed that citizen watchdogs would rapidly figure out how to use the video in their work, or that campaign ads-makers and strategists would be stockpiling clips to use in future campaign ads.

What does amaze me is that legislators haven't figured out yet that the video represents a huge opportunity for them to promote themselves and their legislative agenda and point-of-view on the issues of the day. Just as video clips can be used to highlight gaffes or embarrassments, it can also be used to spotlight legislators who are doing good work and acting professionally.