It’s no secret that the Internet has radically transformed the practice of legislative politics on Capitol Hill. Information is everywhere, and moves like lightning. Staffers are no longer chained to their desks and their hard-line telephones. And, perhaps most importantly, the relay of information from the Hill to the rest of the country (and vice-versa) has been reduced, time-wise, to basically zero. As soon as it happens here, it’s known everywhere. And not only is the information relay faster after something happens, but the outside, non-Hill world feels closer to the policy-making process before anything happens. And that has consequences.

Despite this, people sometimes underestimate the magnitude of the change. To which I respond with this graph (click on to see full size if you are on the main page), which plots incoming mail to the House of Representatives since 2002, as a function of delivery medium. The top line (blue) is incoming emails, the bottom line (black) incoming postal mail.

A few notes: first, the uptick in emails in 2007 that defies the otherwise steady ascent is probably due to several spam attacks that got by the House filtering system. Second, good email data is not available prior to 1998, but any estimate would put it significantly lower than the numbers for 1998. Finally, incoming postal mail does not include mail sent to Member district offices, just mail sent to Capitol Hill.