Why a few Oregon legislators swear by Twitter - and the rest don't use it

Bill Post, the Oregon Legislature's resident

, thought he had an offer his colleagues couldn't refuse.

I'll teach you how to tweet, the radio host-turned representative told the other legislators - three-fifths of whom don't use Twitter.

No takers.

"None of them get it," he said. "I don't know what it is. It's not age - I'm almost 55. Honestly, I think they're sort of scared of it."

Post, R-Keizer, might be generalizing a little. But fear-inspiring or not, Twitter - Facebook's quick-witted, snarkier sibling - takes time to figure out, what with its instantaneous nature and 140-character posting limit.

For those who take the time to use it, Twitter fans say the site presents some appealing possibilities for legislators: They can generate buzz for their bills, talk to their constituents in real-time and shed their stiff political visages for something a bit more comfortable.

The Oregonian/OregonLive combed through 34,000 tweets from Oregon legislators to see who's making the most of the Internet's trickiest tool. Here's what we found out.

1. Most legislators don't really tweet.

Of the Oregon Legislature's 90 lawmakers, 25 don't have a Twitter account. Thirty more have a stagnant account, meaning they tweeted fewer than five times a month on average between April and June. Stagnant accounts include such gems as the first (and last) tweet from Rep. Caddy McKeown, D-Coos Bay:

Just setting up my Twitter. #myfirstTweet

-- Rep. Caddy McKeown (@RepCaddyMckeown)

Or Rep. Brian Clem, D-Salem, who emerged from a year of silence on Twitter to send out a few links to a movie trivia app seemingly unrelated to his duties as a legislator:

Four legislators have an account but have never tweeted. Two have only tweeted once. One lawmaker - Rep. Mark Johnson, R-Hood River - has a private account, meaning only accepted followers can see his tweets. (Johnson said he has "no idea" why the account is private, but he doesn't actively use it.)

And some legislators haven't even uploaded a profile picture yet:

@teganenloe @ASCETweets --small world..I went to grade school and high school with your aunt. Margaret Doherty

-- Margaret Doherty (@doherty_hd35)

2. The Legislature's social media frontrunners have a few big things in common.

So, who in the Oregon Legislature is really using Twitter to connect with voters?

Four clear frontrunners emerged: Post, Rep. Julie Parrish, R-West Linn, Sen. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, and Rep. Shemia Fagan, D-Clackamas.

These legislators tweet a lot, and they often have interesting things to say.

Post is by far the Legislature's most prolific tweeter. He tweets about 10 times a day, compared to less than once a day for the average legislator who uses Twitter.

He made the account in December 2013, when he was running for the Legislature. It was an attempt to wipe clean an Internet slate sullied by snarky and often-controversial tweets he posted from a since-deleted account when he hosted his own radio show - tweets like, "Tina Kotek: wear a dress we want proof."

He fired that off in January 2013, the day Kotek was sworn in as the first openly lesbian leader of an American state legislative chamber.

"If you compare the two accounts, they're night and day," Post said. "Because the other was entertainment. It was a way to get people to watch my show."

A scan of his feed reveals a fangirl-esque devotion to Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry - and a collection of Capitol selfies, news articles, vote explanations and lamentations of Oregon's blue-tinged political landscape.

"I know the average person doesn't give a flying you-know-what about what we do," he said. "They're just so busy. ... So I try to keep things simple."

Post's Twitter habits - and his attitude about social media in general - reflect some traits all four Twitter stars have in common:

  • They don't let staffers tweet for them.

In interviews, all four emphasized that they're the only people with their account passwords.

  • They have a natural affinity for social media, either because of personal or professional interest.

Post used Twitter for his radio show; Fagan used it to market her law firm; Parrish used it to expand a couponing business she once owned (hence her handle, @hotcouponmama); Gelser said "the psychology of social media" fascinates her.

  • They use Twitter because they want to talk to voters directly.

If you tweet at one of the Oregon Legislature's Twitter stars, there's a good chance he or she will tweet back.

"I've found it's a more dynamic and faster way to connect with my constituents," Gelser said, reflecting a common sentiment among the group. "I think part of my job is to be as accessible as possible."

  • They try to use Twitter to beckon followers into the legislative process.

They live-tweet hearings, tweet why they voted "no" on a bill and use the site for information-gathering.

Gelser said she uses Twitter to find out what's happening on the other side of the Capitol during session. Parrish looks to Twitter for local news because her district doesn't have its own daily newspaper. And Fagan said she gets more media response from tweets than she does from press releases.

3. The Legislature's top dogs don't seem to notice Twitter.

The Oregon Legislature's six most powerful members are hardly Twitter stars. Most of this group - which includes the Senate president, House speaker and the Republican and Democrat leaders in each chamber - trails behind the rest of the Legislature in number of tweets and followers.

Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli hasn't tweeted since December 2011. House Speaker Tina Kotek has an account but has never tweeted. Senate President Peter Courtney doesn't even have an account. (Although his parody profile has tweeted about 250 times.)

Jim Moore, director of Pacific University's Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation, said the leaders' lack of Twitter presence makes "perfect sense."

"Their power is in the building," he said. "They don't really need to mobilize people outside of it."

And besides, Moore said, legislative leaders have other ways of disseminating information - frequent interviews with journalists, email blasts and press releases penned by staffers, to name a few.

House Majority Leader Val Hoyle and Minority Leader Mike McLane mostly retweet their respective caucus offices and fellow senators.

Senate Majority Leader Diane Rosenbaum is somewhat of an exception to the rule with an average of 16 tweets a month. This session, she mostly tweeted about Democratic priority bills.

4. Social media matters. But no one's found the magic formula.

Moore, a frequent source of political commentary for the Oregonian, said he's not surprised the Oregon Legislature hasn't cracked the Twitter code.

"God bless people like Bill Post, but nobody's really figured out how to use social media with politics yet," Moore said. "There's no recipe. They just know they need to have it so they don't look behind the times."

Even the legislators with the most followers are reaching only a minuscule fraction of their voter base on Twitter.

An Oregon representative has 66,000 constituents; a senator represents double that number. But even the most popular legislator on Twitter - Rep. Tobias Read, D-Beaverton - has only 3,900 followers, some of them spam robots and many more from outside his district or the state.

The Legislature's biggest Twitter fans hope those numbers will grow. But even if they don't, they say they'll keep tweeting.

"A lot of times in the Legislature, you're just sitting down there in your own echo chamber with other politicians and lobbyists," Parrish said, "and what we're doing maybe isn't resonating with the people we represent. For me, being engaged with people on the outside makes me a better legislator."

-- Jacy Marmaduke