Today, we're rolling out a big improvement of the Get Local Map. The new version is color coded to reflect chamber control, and it's now fully embeddable.

I'm guessing that those of you who read this blog are interested in state legislatures -- if so, write something for your personal webspace and include this map so that others can see the work we have left to turn this country blue.

http://www.dlcc.org/map

We'll be updating chamber margins individual states this week (we're still waiting a few finalized race results).

It occurs to me that I've never done a formal introduction of DLCCWeb. Allow me to remedy that.

As you may have figured out already from some of our previous posts, DLCCWeb is a resource that we have developed with Wired for Change that makes it easy and affordable to campaign online. Democratic legislative candidates can use it to create a professionally designed web site and access powerful online advocacy tools.

We've made it easy for individual candidates to customize and edit their own web sites no matter how comfortable they are with technology and the Internet. We provide a full selection of website templates, headers, and color schemes. Campaigns can publish a blog, set up photo gallery, or publish an issue survey with the click of a mouse. All the content can be altered online using a very simple editor tool, so no additional software or technical expertise of HTML is required.

Again, as I've said before, more than 200 of our candidates in races in 30 states are using DLCCWeb to power their campaigns.

As this election cycle unfolds, we'll have a lot more to say about this resource and the candidates who are using it.

If you have a minute, check it out, and let us know what you think.

Matt Yglesias, a blogger for The Atlantic, wrote a post today that I’ve been thinking about a lot.

He attended a presentation on new media given by Rep. Steve Harrelson, the House Majority Leader in Arkansas, at the DLC National Conversation. Harrelson writes a blog called Under the Dome, which just for the record, it is pretty incredible. Matt agrees, calling it (and other blogs like it):

[A] kind of fascinating development that potentially has a lot of promise for state and local officials who don't necessarily have big staffs.

Harrelson is not alone in writing online -- in Virginia, Dels. Kris Amundson and Bob Brink write a really good blog called 7 West; in Idaho, Rep. Nicole LeFavour writes a fantastic blog, which is authentic and honest in a way that I really love; and there are many others.

But often, these leaders are the exception and not the rule.

In his post, Matt describes how the state and local officials in the room were scared about the consequences of being involved online:

All anyone wanted to talk about was fear about what might go wrong on the internet. Could one of my kids write something on their Facebook page that embarrasses me? What if I become the victim of unfair attacks from anonymous people writing online? What about journalistic standards? Wither truth? The whole litany of internet-related fears.

I’d love to say that this is the reason that we developed the DLCCWeb. But in truth, we built it to counter a second set of problems -- making the Internet simple and affordable enough that all of our legislative candidates can build and update their own websites.

Encouraging the mentality to engage in online democracy is a different proposition. But we’re trying. Blog publishing is built right into DLCCWeb, along with volunteer tools, online fundraising, and social network integration. This cycle, several hundred candidates (with a whole range of technology comfort levels) are using the Internet in a way that they haven't before because of this service.

And we're doing our best to take the lessons of the Internet to heart in house and to practice what we preach on this blog.

I’d love to hear some feedback from the people who are reading this. Are we succeeding? What can we do better? Submit a comment or send me an email -- compton[at]dlcc.org.

Insight. This is a busy election year, and across the Internet, a lot of the oxygen will be devoted to the presidential race. That’s to be expected, but we will carve out a different niche. We’ll provide you with information about state legislators, their races, and the laws that they are working to pass. We’ll also keep you updated about plans for redistricting -- highlighting the states where partisan control of the legislature will make a difference in the composition of the Congressional delegation. And we’ll do that by providing you with our own analysis as well as pointing you toward the best coverage everywhere else. We want our website to be the first place you visit on the web for information about these local races.

Voice. Each post on this blog will be written to offer some context. You’ll never see us publish a throwaway entry that consist of nothing more than a headline and a blockquote. We want to create an authentic series of voices for this organization -- with each of us offering a unique perspective on the work we do and the political situations we encounter. We will sign each of our posts, and we’ll all be available for feedback. We want to have a conversation, so we will read all of your comments and reply to them. We will also link to other blogs and work to build up a dialogue that extends beyond the walls of our site.

Content. Even if things get busy, we will always continue update this blog regularly. While we’ll still send emails, hold events, and organize conference calls, this blog will be the chief outlet for communicating with all of our constituents. News happens in our world every day, and this is where we will respond to it.

There are 7,382 legislators in the country, and there are 12 of us working at the DLCC to make sure that most of these public servants are Democrats.

Right now, our party controls 3,983 of the nation’s legislative seats and 57 of the 98 partisan legislative chambers. We’ve made net gains in every election since 2003, so yes -- we’re good at what we do.

And what is that exactly? How do we spend our time?

We build relationships with legislative leaders, professional staff, and activists in every part of the country. Through those connections, we organize and maintain winning, state-of-the-art campaign committees; develop state-specific electoral strategies; and offer access to tools like polling, communications, research, and fundraising capabilities.

Why does this all matter?

I don’t think it is a secret for anyone reading this blog that most of the public policy in this country that has a direct impact on our everyday lives gets decided in our nation’s statehouses. When we talk about funding for education, or roads, or jobs, for the most part, we’re talking about the work of state representatives and senators.

But let’s put that fact aside for a second; say you’re just interested in the federal government. Then let me ask you this: who draws the boundaries for the U.S. congressional districts?

That’s right, our local legislators.

There are 36 state legislatures that control Congressional redistricting, and 27 chambers in 21 of these states are within 5 seats of tying or changing hands.

Those 21 states will decide the fate of 260 Congressional districts.

And by the way, quite a few of those seats in Congress will be held by former state legislators. That’s where many of the country’s elected officials get their start.

Need proof? Well, just four years ago, Barack Obama was serving the people of Illinois in the state senate.

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If you’re invested in seeing this country change, then you have to pay attention to our nation’s statehouses, and this website is about to become your new favorite spot on the partisan web. Every day, we will be writing about the latest redistricting news and policy updates; we’ll give you election analysis and profile Democratic leaders across the country; and of course, we’ll point out the worst Republican misdeeds and respond to GOP attacks.

To make this a success, we’re going to depend on feedback from our readers. There are 12 of us and 50 states, and we can’t be on the ground everywhere, all the time. So drop us a line -- we’ll read every comment that you post and every email that you send.