Coming up in a few days, there will be there will be a special celebration highlighting Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro’s twenty years in Congress. She was there in 1993, the last time the congress attempted to pass health care reform. She was there for twelve years of Republican control of the house. This year, she was there as Congress passed health care reform. “This is why you go,” she told bloggers this afternoon, “these opportunities are once in a lifetime”.

Yet throughout the whole process there has been a lot of misinformation spread. Rep. DeLauro is addressing this in different ways. This morning, she held office hours at the Woodbridge Library where she spoke one on one with constituents about their concerns. Still, even after health care reform has been signed, some people are more concerned with the process than the substance of the reforms and many people do not yet know what is in the law that affects them.

The office hours in Woodbridge are just a beginning of the effort to get people to understand what has actually been passed. After the office hours, Rep. DeLauro spent time talking with bloggers about health care reform. On Monday, she will be visiting the Quinnipiac University’s School of Health Sciences campus in North Haven from noon until 1 pm to discuss its benefits with young adults. She will also be speaking with small business owners, doctors, senior citizens and others that need to know what the changes really mean for them.

As the health care legislation was being crafted and debated in congress, much of the media failed the American people by only focusing on the process and a lot of the important issues never made it into the papers. Yet some bloggers did focus on the failures of the current health care system such as insurance companies calling domestic violence a pre-existing condition.

So what has made it into the health care legislation? Rep. DeLauro has always had a keen interest in food and nutrition issues. Part of health care reform includes a requirement that fast food restaurants with more than twenty-five stores list the calories in their food. Rep. DeLauro worked closely with industry groups to come up with acceptable legislation. It is an issue that Rep. DeLauro has worked long and hard on saying that she “was the crazy aunt in the attic” on the issue. Yet by simply making a little more information available, customers can make healthier choices about the food they purchase.

Yet there is so much more that needs to be done on food safety. Currently, only 1% of food imported into our country is inspected, and we are importing more and more food. Currently, there are fifteen agencies that deal with food safety at the Federal level. Rep. DeLauro believes we need one agency with that oversight.

Yet what about possible loopholes in the current health care reform? Rep. DeLauro spoke about the insurance companies immediately trying to find loopholes instead of trying to find what is best for the people of our country. Through vigilantly watching the insurance companies, this search for loopholes was exposed, the companies were shamed into backing off, and additional legislation is being pursued to better regulate the health insurance industry.

Much of this, as well as problems in the financial industry illustrates why self-regulation does not work, Rep. DeLauro maintains. Congress needs to take its responsibility for oversight much more seriously.

Unfortunately, it used to be that we had media that took oversight seriously as well; media that understood its role in making sure that we have the informed public that Jefferson said was necessary for democracy. Rep. DeLauro noted that when she started in Washington, the New York Times had a Connecticut stringer in Washington and the Connecticut Post, the Hartford Courant, and the New Haven Register all had people in DC. Now, there is no one left in Washington covering the Connecticut delegation.

Where are people getting their news today? Current media outlets tend to focus on the professional wrestling theatrics of politics and not on informing the public or serving the public good. To a certain extent, bloggers and online journalists can fill some of the gaps that have been left, taking advantage of the Internet as a means of reaching people. Yet this illustrates why Net Neutrality is so important, and Rep. DeLauro is a strong supporter of Net Neutrality.

Yet even if we manage to have informatory news instead of cheap entertainment masquerading as news, other problems remain. One of the biggest is the role of money in politics and Rep. DeLauro supports efforts to bring about meaningful campaign finance reforms.

Perhaps, with a rise of citizen driven informatory news and meaningful campaign finance reform, people can learn more about what is really in the health care reform act and other legislation. More importantly, it might be able to bring a little bit of civility back to our public discourse. If it takes a crazy aunt in the attic to lead the way, so be it.