A brief history of Congress and e-mail

Most members of Congress have had e-mail access going back to the mid-1990s, but some lawmakers have failed to make much of it. Electronic communication in the House and Senate dates back decades to the use of connected computer networks confined to a small area, such as a Senate office, known as local area networks (LANs). Those evolved into networks connecting multiple offices in Congress or lawmakers' state offices and eventually morphed into current-day Internet connections and e-mail systems. The ubiquity of the technology today left some on social media perplexed when Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC) revealed over the weekend he had never sent an e-mail. Sen John McCain (R-AZ) said the same earlier in March. Here are five things to know about the history of congressional e-mail:

1. Sen Graham is not alone: Sens Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Charels Schumer (D-NY) said they either rarely or never use e-mail.
2. Pilot Program: In June 1993, the House set up an e-mail pilot program to give seven members of Congress the ability to communicate with their constituents through e-mail. The initial program required that constituents send in a postcard through the traditional mail system to request permission to e-mail their representative.
3. Anticipating E-mail Bombs: The clunky process of sending an actual piece of mail before getting permission to send an e-mail was meant to weed out nonconstituents and was later retired. In his book "The Hill on the Net", author Chris Casey noted that the first system did not route emails directly to lawmakers, because of the worry that interest groups would flood offices with e-mail campaigns -- a regular occurrence today.
4. Connecting Half of Congress: By August 1995, more than half of all senators had e-mail addresses constituents could use, according to The Hill on the Net. By early 1996, 175 members of the House also had e-mail addresses. According to a 1995 Newsweek poll, only 13 percent of the public said they had ever gone online at that point.
5. Having and Using E-mail is Not the Same Thing: Former Sen Edward Kennedy (D-MA) is credited as the first senator to have a website. But Casey, Kennedy's systems administrator, said the first Senator to set up an e-mail address might have been former Sen Chuck Robb (D-VA), followed by Kennedy and former Sen Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). But while Kennedy's office was a pioneer in connecting Congress, his former aide Jim Manley said the senator could not use a BlackBerry "if his life depended on it."