Paulsen Website Wins Gold Mouse Award

3rd District Congressman awarded for quality of his website, one of just 38 in Congress to capture the honor out of 620 evaluated websites.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman Erik Paulsen (MN-03) was presented with the Gold Mouse Award for his Congressional website last night during a ceremony honoring the top websites in Congress. The award, chosen by the independent Congressional Management Foundation (CMF), is given to the top websites in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, including both committee and official leadership websites.

Out of 620 total websites evaluated by CMF, Paulsen’s was one of 38 to receive the prestigious Gold Mouse Award. Only four websites were given a higher award, and Paulsen was the only freshman Republican given the Gold Mouse Award.

"My number one priority in Congress is constituent service and an important part of that effort is having an informative, effective and interactive website,” Paulsen said. “I consider my website to be my ‘online office’ and I was thrilled to accept this award for one of the best websites in Congress. I encourage my constituents to continue utilizing this important tool to stay engaged in the future."

The 111th Congress Gold Mouse Awards are part of CMF’s Partnership For A More Perfect Union, which seeks to improve the quality of communication between Members of Congress and their constituents. For this project CMF partnered with researchers from several universities to study how Members of Congress can use the Internet to improve communications with their constituents and to promote greater participation in the legislative process.

Websites were graded on how well they incorporate five core principles that CMF identified through research as critical for effectiveness: know your audience, provide timely and targeted content that meets their needs, make the site easy to use, foster interaction both on and offline, and add value through innovation.

For more information on 111th Congress Gold Mouse Project report, including a full listing of all winners, please visit www.pmpu.org. ###

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 22, 2010 CONTACT: Luke Friedrich (952) 405-8510 / Andrew Foxwell (202) 225-2871

“The American people want Congress to change the way we spend the people’s money.”

Washington, DC - U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Conference, delivered the following remarks today in support of earmark reform legislation introduced by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA):

"The American people are tired of borrowing and spending and bailouts in Washington DC. They've gathered in town hall meetings, and tea parties, and rallies across this country for the last year-and-a-half to say "enough is enough." But it's not just runaway federal spending. The American people also want Congress to change the way we spend the people's money.

"And House Republicans took a historic step this year when we embraced a unilateral one-year ban on all earmarks. I commend Congressman Goodlatte, and stand with my other leaders in Congress to say that we should not only embrace a unilateral one-year ban on earmarks, but we should use the savings that the ban will impose to reduce the deficit. We should initiate a process to begin to literally change the way we spend the people's money going forward.

"But my focus today is simply to call on Speaker Pelosi to put the American people's money where her mouth is, to join us, Madame Speaker, in this unilateral one-year moratorium. And let's go to work in a bipartisan way to fundamentally restore public confidence in the budget process here in Washington, DC."

Background
The resolution introduced by Rep. Goodlatte would require that money saved from the Republican ban on earmarks be put toward deficit reduction. The resolution would also create a bipartisan and bicameral committee to review and overhaul the budgetary, spending, and earmark process. ###

Contact Matt Lloyd or Mary Vought at (202) 226-9000 or matt.lloyd@mail.house.gov