Those that keep up w/my doings (and if you do, I don't know how you do it, I barely do it LOL) know that over the last year I've been working semi-behind the scenes trying to improve the relationship between first campaigns and bloggers, and now our elected officials and bloggers.
In that effort I've met some really great bloggers I'd never have met before and I've gotten to meet a few of our elected officials and lots of the amazing staffers that support them.
This journey that started at Netroots Nation 09 in Pittsburgh took a huge leap forward the weekend of the Healthcare Reform Vote. Over that weekend Rep. Hank Johnson and his staffers took notice of some of what Stranded Wind and I were doing on Twitter and joined the fun. This led to a few quick emails over the weekend and Monday morning after the vote, Rep. Hank Johnson and a few staffers spent an hour on the phone w/me,Stranded Wind, Sandi Behrns and a few others tho I don't remember exactly who anymore.
From there, I got immersed in campaign world. Kept in touch w/one of Rep. Johnson's staffers who was down in Georiga running his re-election effort...but they weren't a client, they were busy, I was busy and so things went.
Then in January Stranded Wind and I were in DC on business and we hosted a mixer for legislative staffers at the ProgressiveCongress.org headquarters to introduce them to Progressive Congress News. Lo and behold, who should appear but the Artful Dodger himself...we'll call him Staffer X...
Later in the week we ran into him in the hallway outside of the cafeteria in Longworth and we made plans to get together and actually talk for a while- in fact we extended our trip to make it happen, we were not going to pass this chance up if we didn't have to.
So we met, chatted for an hour, said it's nice to finally put a face to the voice and went on our merry way. One thing led to another and then last week Rep. Hank Johnson reminded us all why every member of the Progressive Caucus is a Progressive Hero- starting by calling for an investigation into the Chamber Leaks mess...then by introducing a bill to make it illegal to discriminate against the unemployed in the hiring process...then Congress actually opened an official investigation into Chamberleaks and finally by grilling the DOJ Counsel hard in the a House Armed Services Committee hearing about the treatment of Bradley Manning on Thursday- phew- I'm exhausted just typing it all out! And that's only the work we saw out in public!
This led to another quick phone call (this one came while I was getting my haircut on St. Patrick's Day of all places and times) and now this coming Wednesday at 6 pm EST Rep. Johnson and some staffers will join us on a conference bridge to answer questions about all this and more.
You're invited to join us...just message me here on Kos or email me at progressivepst at that gmail thingy and we'll have us some fun!