For those who believe that some organizations in the blindness and
disability are somewhat archaic and slow to act on technology, consider
the United States Senate.  It apppears that Senators are lining up on
this issue, like in the blindness community, along generational lines.

btw, As one might guess, Senator byrd is agagainst this idea of ;aptops,
just like he was against white canes and guide dogs on the Senate floor.

kelly

from the New York times

      August 10, 1997

The Mighty U.S. Senate
Is Trembling Over Laptops

      By ERIC SCHMITT

     W ASHINGTON -- When Sen. Michael Enzi of Wyoming asked permission
     three months ago to bring his laptop computer on the Senate floor
     to take notes, it seemed like a simple request.

     "I can carry five or six briefcases worth of information in my
     computer, find it there easily and use it for debate," said Enzi,
     an accountant by training who uses his laptop the way most people
     use a yellow notepad.

     But Enzi, a first-term Republican, is learning that nothing is
     simple when it comes to tinkering with the traditions of the U.S.
     Senate, whose chamber still has original 19th-century wooden desks,
     inkwells and spittoons.

     Enzi's proposal has stirred angst in the august Senate, whose rules
     bar any mechanical devices that could distract senators on the
     floor. Several Senators say that permitting laptops in the Senate
     chamber would ruin the decorum of the world's most deliberative
     (and deliberate) body, and allow aides and lobbyists to bombard
     senators with messages throughout a debate.

     "I'm not against computers, but I think they have their place and
     it's not everywhere," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "When
     you're speaking on the Senate floor, you should be speaking from a
     lifetime of experience, not from what you punch up on a computer."

     As computer technology invades House and Senate offices, with
     lawmakers racing to outdesign one another's home pages, the
     soul-searching over laptops underscores the tension the stately,
     slow-moving Senate faces in coming to grips with cyberspace and the
     realm of electronic democracy.

     Allowing senators to boot up on the Senate floor would be the
     chamber's biggest technological change since gavel-to-gavel
     televised coverage of floor action was grudgingly introduced in
     1986.

     The House has prohibited lawmakers from using electronic gadgets on
     the floor since 1995, but a subcommittee is reviewing the policy.

     In practice, the Senate already allows some laptops in the chamber
     -- for the Senate parliamentarian and clerks to file parliamentary
     procedures and legislation.

     At least 16 state legislatures allow lawmakers to use portable
     computers in the chamber and several more states are considering
     the idea.

     Prompted by Enzi's request, the Senate sergeant at arms, Gregory S.
     Casey, conducted a three-month study and concluded in a report late
     last month that Senate rules would allow lawmakers to use laptops
     on the Senate floor if the machines are not connected to an outside
     network.

     "The presence of networked devices on the Senate floor poses
     security, policy and ethical questions as yet unanswered," Casey
     said a letter accompanying the report to Sen. John Warner, R-Va.,
     who heads the Rules and Administration Committee, which requested
     the study.

     Warner has sent copies of the report to all 100 senators, and the
     committee plans to consider the recommendations in September.

     "It is time the Senate has to recognize how it wishes to conduct
     its affairs in view of the explosion of technology on every front
     in the United States," Warner said.

     Before the Senate left on vacation, the Rules Committee previewed
     at a meeting what will likely be a spirited debate on the laptop
     issue this fall.

     "There is a lot to be said for tradition in a body of 100 where we
     are able to function without some of these additions," said Sen.
     Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. "If we are going to go into
     high-tech, we could also have electronic voting devices."

     Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., agreed: "The entry of an electronic
     notebook on the floor of the United States Senate will inevitably
     lead to staff instructions on voting and the scripting of all
     remarks."

     Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., one of the fiercest defenders of Senate
     traditions, asked, "What will be the next step if we take this? I
     would be a bit irritable, I think, if I looked around and saw
     someone sitting beside me, typing on this thing."

     Other veteran senators, generally support the laptop initiative,
     although with some restrictions. "I am trying not to be an old
     fogey here," Sen. Wendell Ford, D-Ky., 72, said at the Rules
     Committee meeting. "A lot of younger people are coming in and they
     like the computer; they want to use laptops."

     In his report, Casey said laptop noise would not disturb any
     senatorial colloquy, noting that no one complains now about the
     comings and goings of aides and Senate pages, and senators'
     whispered conversations.

     Enzi waxed philosophical about the matter. "We're running into
     computers everywhere and they're becoming more essential tools," he
     said in an interview. "But things move slowly sometimes in the
     Senate. Eventually, though, people won't even remember it
     happened."


                 Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company