Unused power: legislators ignore technology.

• Author: Krueger, Rick

A computer consultant and speaker pro tem, the author takes legislators to task for lagging far behind the other branches, and business, in taking advantage of information technology.

Legislators usually want to lead the parade. But right now there is an important parade going by that hasn't caught their attention.

It's the parade of information technology, the electronic medium used in offices and homes to improve the way we conduct our affairs. It legislatures we see it in the form of computers, telephones, televisions, fax machines, pagers and modems. Even a casual observer sees the benefits of passing information this way. You hear the words around the Capitol--LANS, networks, bandwidth--so you know these new technology are being used. But despite the pervasive manner in which they are changing the world, information technologies don't seem to interest legislators beyond certain narrow applications.

High-tech information system have caught the attention of the other branches of government and of decision makers in the business world who use them to great advantage. These new technologies increase productivity (through innovations such as E-mail and word processing) and improve the quality of decisions (with the help of "decision support systems" and artificial intelligence).

State and local executive branch agencies have high-tech ways to deliver services to citizens. In Tulare County, Calif., families can pre-qualify for AFDC grants through terminals set up in public places. Food stamps and welfare payments are being issued through magnetic-stripe cards and automatic teller machines in pilot projects in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Minnesota and Iowa. Ohio, South Carolina and other states are developing similar projects. In Mercer County, N. J., citizens vote with just a touch to the screen of a personal computer that automatically tabulates the results of every race as soon as the polls close. The Minnesota Department of Transportation uses artificial intelligence to help truckers legally navigate the state's roads and highways. Truckers calling in on a touch-tone phone get weight permits and route information via computer.

Governors have at their fingertips computer technology that monitors, analyzes and projects budget scenarios. Reports that used to take hours to assemble now can be created and displayed--complete with graphics--in a matter of minutes or even seconds. Executive branch decision makers can now examine myriad...