It wasn't very long ago when it was hard for any legislative campaign to have a website. Unless you were willing to pay a consulting firm an absurd amount of money or knew a very talented kid, your options were pretty limited. Now, that's all changing (in part because of resources like DLCCWeb), and it's a good thing.

In this cycle, we're starting to see some really creative uses of the web. I've already talked about some of the things that activists are doing in Texas. But the folks in the Pennsylvania House Democratic Campaign Committee have some pretty good ideas for using the Internet as well.

This is one of them. Todd Stephens is a Republican candidate for state representative in District 151. He's also an assistant district attorney who is making a slew of questionable decisions:

[R]ather than uphold a strict code of ethics and put our community first, Todd is busy lining his campaign coffers with cash. Todd’s accepted over $5,000 in political contributions from defense attorneys and law firms. And Todd has taken cash from attorneys defending at least five clients—four DUI offenders and one accused sexual predator—with cases pending before his office.

That’s a minimum of five documented conflicts of interests.

Yes, you still try to get folks in the traditional media to write stories about this kind of thing. Yes, you still put facts like these in traditional advertising and mail. But a creative website that allows you to present all the information you have about a candidate costs very little and allows you to attract a lot of new eyeballs. That's exactly what PAHDC has done here.

And it's effective.

Pennsylvania is home to the largest full-time legislature in the country, and that's supposed to be an important responsibility. An assumption that the job will require some sacrifices is part of the reason why citizens of the state provide legislators with a salary of $73,000 a year. But that's apparently not enough money for Republican State Representative Kate Harper:

[In addition to the legislature] the Montgomery County attorney also serves, in a paid capacity, as Upper Moreland Solicitor, Hatfield Borough Council Solicitor and the Milford Township Zoning Board Solicitor.

As you'd expect, the result of all this "service" is that Rep. Harper ends up cutting corners. For instance:

Harper chose to attend various local municipal meetings in her role as Solicitor and skipped her duties in the State House of Representatives on February 11, April 7, May 21, and July 2 just this year.

As the Pennsylvania Progressive tracks down, Rep. Harper didn't bother voting on legislation for mortgage reform or prison reform. She skipped important votes for expanding health care. As the solicitor for a local zoning board, you'd expect her to take an interest in zoning regulations, but she even skipped a vote on that.

It seems pretty clear that Rep. Harper would rather be spending time in her district. Perhaps her Democratic opponent -- Frank Custer -- will give her just that opportunity in November.

On his first day in office, Colorado Republican Doug Bruce kicked a news photographer and then became the first ever member of the state House of Representatives to be censured by the body -- by a vote of 62-1.

Bruce is an activist -- he was a leading backer for Colorado's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (which was designed to starve the state's government) -- and he was appointed to a seat in the legislature in December.

He lost that seat last night, going down in his Republican primary 52-48.

When asked about the race, even his GOP opponent said that Bruce was an embarrassment.

I hate to kick a guy while he's down, but given Bruce's history, I'm sure he'll be causing more trouble for the people of Colorado soon enough.

There isn't a state in the country with a better group of online activists than Texas. The more attention I pay to their work, the more impressed I become.

First, you've got the individual efforts of many, many talented bloggers. There are a lot of states that would be fortunate to have a single, progressive site as good as Capitol Annex, Burnt Orange Report, Off the Kuff, or Greg's Opinion (a list heavily biased by the folks I read regularly but by no means exclusive). That's not even counting relatively newer bloggers who are engaging in the state (folks like Rachel -- who actually wrote an open letter to her state rep, offering to set him up with a DLCCWeb-powered site).

Second, these folks have organized an alliance to unify the efforts of bloggers and netroots activists in the state to promote progressive ideas and candidates. They promote each others' posts, raise money for candidates, organize offline events, and have developed an advertising network.

Third, they have formed a political action committee with one important goal:

During the 2008 election cycle, the TexBlog PAC will work toward winning 5 additional seats in the Texas House, allowing Democrats to elect a Democratic Speaker. A net gain of 5 house seats will put an end to the Republican claim of unilateral power and bring back the democratic process to the people’s House.

By contributing to progressive candidates, fostering the energy of the netroots, supporting party infrastructure, registering new voters, funding civic education programs, and assisting like-minded grassroots activists, the TexBlog PAC will help elect progressive candidates in 2008 and beyond. We will pave the path to a brighter tomorrow by putting Democrats back in charge of our state government.

Obviously, that's a mission that's near and dear to our hearts at the DLCC.

And yesterday, Vince from Capitol Annex shot me note to let me know about a new project that he and some of the other bloggers from the state had just launched: TexRepublicans.com (how they managed to come into possession of that particular URL, I'll never know, but I love it). These guys have collected research on GOP legislative candidates throughout the state and offered it up for all the world to see.

Some of the facts they've found are truly astounding. Rep. Betty Brown, for instance, actually sponsored a bill to legalize the sale of horse meat for human consumption. Rep. John Davis has spent thousands of dollars from campaign funds on personal expenditures without reporting the spending to Texas Ethics Commissions. Then there is Rep. Bill Zedler, who allowed Texans for a Republican Majority, a group founded by Tom DeLay to pay thousands of dollars in his legal bills.

I really can't say enough for this kind of activism. Winning back the Texas House isn't going to be an easy task this cycle, but support like this helps to make it easier.

The Des Moines Register has a great soundbite from Iowa State Rep. Dan Rasmussen, a Republican:

"I'm sure I'm being nasty and mean, but that's my personality and you're going to have to take it."

Delightful, isn't it?

There aren't too many politicians who will readily admit to being, "nasty and mean." But in Rasmussen's case, at least that has the virtue of being true. Luckily for Iowa, the second part of his statement is 100 percent false. No one has to take an attitude like that from an elected official.

Particularly, when Democrats have a great candidate in Gene Ficken with a real chance at sending Rasmussen into retirement.

New York has a law about retired legislators doing business with their former colleagues. Legally, they are forbidden from lobbying the legislature for 2 years after leaving office.

But there's nothing stopping a retired lawmaker from lobbying the executive branch, and that's a loophole that must make Joseph Bruno -- the former Republican leader in the NY Senate -- happy.

Just four days after leaving office, Bruno has found a new job as the chief executive for an information technology firm:

Mr. Bruno’s new employer, CMA Consulting Services, has contracts with the offices of the attorney general and comptroller, as well as the Office of General Services.

And while Bruno can't take the trip down to Albany, the firm he now runs has plenty of business at the state house:

State records show that CMA has hired lobbyists to represent its interests in Albany. In 2007, it spent almost $95,000 lobbying for two bills that never became law. One would have set up a pilot program to monitor traffic in Nassau County using cameras similar to those that CMA sells.

CMA will also put Bruno in a position to continue to help state Republicans. Last cycle, the firm gave more than $5,000 to the New York State Senate Republican Campaign Committee. I'm guessing that number might even go up a bit next this year.

While Bruno hasn't disclosed what he'll make running the firm, we do know that he's entitled to a Senate pension of between $90,000 and $100,000 a year. Money he'll continue to make as he lobbies the state.

Can't really blame him, though. All that extra cash ought to come in handy with his legal bills...

Finally, it's worth mentioning that the likely reason for Bruno's retirement has to do with Democratic chances in the fall. We believe that we have a great opportunity to pick up the NY Senate, and I've heard a lot of people say that Bruno left office because he had no desire to serve in the minority.

It would be fantastic if he didn't recognize quite as many people when he is cleared to start lobbying for CMA.

In this interconnected world of ours, there are few better ways to draw attention to something than to protest its existence. Unfortunately for him and his state, I don't think Republican State Sen. David Thomas of South Carolina understands that.

Earlier this year, the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism of his state agreed to participate in an advertising campaign to promote South Carolina to gay European tourists. Similar ads were sponsored by the city governments of Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C.

The advertisements were timed for London’s Gay Pride Week, which ended Saturday. The posters touted the attractions of the state to gay tourists, including its "gay beaches" and its Civil War-era plantations.

Sen. Thomas found out about the ad when he was contacted by the SC blog Palmetto Scoop. He called for an audit of the state's tourism advertising budget and told the blog this:

"South Carolinians will be irate when they learn their hard earned tax dollars are being spent to advertise our state as 'so gay'...This campaign goes against our core values."

A Google search for the phrase, 'Sen. David Thomas "So Gay" ' now returns about 108,000 results. Because of him, copies and text from the advertisement have run alongside coverage from Time and Newsweek, and papers from all over the country and the world.

Maybe that's exactly what Thomas intended, but here's the thing. Prior to this kerfuffle, I had no idea that South Carolina even had gay beaches.

And more importantly, an advertisement designed to improve the state's tourism industry will now have the opposite effect. In tough economic times, you gotta think that's a little foolish.

In Michigan, there are a lot of regulations restricting the types of people who are allowed to vote absentee:

[It] is limited to those 60 and older, or anyone who will be out of town on Election Day, is in jail, has religious reasons for not attending the polls or needs assistance at the polls.

Democratic lawmakers have sponsored legislation to open up the process and make it available to any citizen who requests a ballot by mail, for any reason. And of course, the Republicans have blocked the bill, claiming that they are scared of 'voter fraud.'

Democrats rallied at the state Capitol yesterday, protesting the delay. But the GOP has a four-seat majority in the upper chamber, which of course, makes passage of the legislation unlikely.

The Michigan Senate isn't on the ballot this fall, but in 2010, this chamber is definitely going to be on on our target list.

This issue is a perfect example of why. I don't need to launch into a lecture about civic responsibility and participatory democracy 12 hours before Independence Day.

But I will say this -- Voting rights are a fundamental difference between our party and the other guys. We try to make the process as open as possible, and they try to close it down.

Putting aside all other considerations, that's reason enough for me to vote Democratic year in and year out.

Rep. Fabian Nunez -- Speaker Emeritus of the California Assembly and DLCC Board member -- has an op-ed in the California Progress Report where he takes a hard line against some Republican mischief:

[Last year] Republicans wanted to hold the state budget hostage to win an end-run around CEQA, California’s premier environmental law, which would have benefited oil companies and developers. Not only wasn’t that a budget issue, it wasn’t in California’s best interest and my fellow Democrats and I made it clear that it wasn’t going to happen [...]

This year the rollbacks the Republicans are floating would damage our air quality, disadvantage working people, deny the disabled their full rights and increase the jeopardy the state is facing from global warming. Speaker Bass and the Democratic leadership have rightly and strongly made it clear that the Republicans actions aren’t just unrelated to the budget they are bad for California and will not happen on their watch. The more the public knows about the hostage taking, and the more they see what is really being pursued, the more I believe they will back up the Democrats strong response.

One of the bills the GOP have attempted to delay is AB 32, a groundbreaking law to combat climate change.

This is California -- a place where Silicon Valley start-ups are investing serious cash in technologies to fight global warming. As Nunez notes, studies indicate that AB 32 might create as many as 83,000 jobs. That's part of why the bill has the strong support of the state's business community.

Is there anyone the GOP won't risk alienating these days?

Over the weekend, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community -- an organization with tens of millions in 189 countries worldwide -- held its 60th annual U.S. convention in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Last Wednesday, lawmakers in the state decided to sponsor a ceremonial resolution honoring the group. Resolutions like this are routine and most are approved quickly and unanimously. That's why it was so surprising to see this bill cause a controversy.

But cause controversy it did.

Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican from near Pittsburgh, prevented the House from even considering the legislation, arguing:

The Muslims do not recognize Jesus Christ as God, and I will be voting negative.

That statement not only offended members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (the group's president called the remarks, "a form of extremism"), it disturbed many of his fellow lawmakers.

Democratic Rep. Babette Josephs of Philadelphia, a Jewish lawmaker, responded by asking:

I wonder what I would not also qualify for -- being on the floor myself? Having the right to vote? Having the right to practice my religion?

The Pennsylvania press is also taking Metcalfe to task, and this editorial from the Sunday Pittsburgh Post-Gazette hits all the right notes:

The Founding Fathers knew about the dangers of sectarianism from the bitter history of the Old World, which is why the Constitution forbade a religious test for office. In America, you can believe in any faith or none -- and Americans have come to expect that religious tests by their representatives won't be applied in any sphere.

Unfortunately, state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican from Cranberry, was oblivious to this truth last week. Not for the first time in his career, he rushed in where angels fear to tread [...]

Mr. Metcalfe may have meant his remark innocently, but if you make a career of saying ill-considered things, then as ye sow so shall ye reap -- this time a controversy needlessly incited and hurtful to all sorts of people.

The legislature has the opportunity to reconsider the resolution this week, but with the Harrisburg convention ended, it seems that the moment has passed.

I just can't get past what a shame that is.