Opinion: Please, Senator Liu, use RSS

In the process of switching over to track Monrovia's new state senator (Democrat Carol Liu) from our previous state senator (Republican Bob Huff), I noticed something strange.

To get news out quickly, I use an old but reliable system called RSS (Really Simple Syndication) that is embedded in virtually every web publishing platform. It let me quickly track additions Senator Huff made to his web page and turn his comments into news, so I thought I would use the same system to track additions Senator Carol Liu makes to her web page.

Well, I can't because she isn't using RSS. Further, in poking around, it appears that only two of her 25 Democratic senatorial colleagues listed here ( http://democrats.senate.ca.gov/members ) are using it. These are Kevin de Leon and Alan Lowenthal.

This strikes me as an oversight and not intentional, but it should be corrected.

RSS lets not only me, but anybody, quickly track what their representatives have to say.

On the other side of the aisle, all 14 Republican state senators listed here ( http://cssrc.us/senators.aspx ) have an RSS feed for their websites and all but two (Ted Gaines and Sharon Runner) have an RSS button displayed right on their home page.

I ask that in reaching toward the ideal of open government, that Senator Carol Liu and her colleagues would activate the RSS feeds on their websites.

- Brad Haugaard