(Cross-posted at Greater Democracy)

Yesterday was a big day for the future of Democratic Politics. Yes, we all know about the importance of the first woman Speaker of the House. I hope many of us were touched by her reaching out to a new generation and inviting children up to the speaker’s chair to touch the gavel. So, instead of talking about that, I want to talk about a different aspect of it being a big day.

Representative George Miller stopped by in Second Life at Capitol Hill in Second Life. For more information about the space, check out Rocketboom’s Wiki entry about the space.

You can read about it on the New York Times’ blog and Beth Kanter’s blog. I recorded various parts of the event using Fraps. Unfortunately, the format that Fraps saves is a bit strange and I haven’t had a chance to edit my two gigs of clips. I did put a couple of them up on blip.tv if anyone wants to grab some raw footage. Also, drop me a note if you want some of my other raw footage.

During the event, we watched the opening of Congress on a C-Span feed streaming in and talked about a lot of different things. Folks from Sun Microsystems and Clearink were there. They had helped a lot with the building of Capitol Hill in Second Space and had some interesting things to talk about.

In particular, they mentioned Edutopia, a project of the George Lucas Educational Foundation. It looks like Edutopia is project that should be looked at more closely.

One of the interesting features of Capitol Hill in Second Life was that the roof was transparent. There were various jokes about promoting transparency in Washington, and Rep. Miller talked a bit about transparency. I asked a question about the Punch Clock Campaign and Read the Bill. He spoke generally about his support of such efforts, and I hope that people stay on top of this.

Also, during a hiatus, I had a great discussion with Katt Kongo. Katt is the editor of The Metaverse Messenger. She claims it is the largest newspaper in SecondLife, with a circulation of around twenty thousand. I was struck by it being a PDF, as opposed to some sort of blog feed with RSS etc. She claimed that she got better advertising rates that way and that M2, as it is known, is self supporting and she is actually managing to earn her living reporting on Second Life.

We talked about what role Capitol Hill in Second Life could pay, and I spoke about how I hoped that it would encourage people not traditionally involved with politics and governance to become more connected with the political process.

Other reporters there included Adam Reuters who runs Reuters bureau in Second Life, as well as a reporter for GQ, who was wearing a tux that did not live up to his GQ billing. There were various discussions about how hard it is to find good men’s clothes in Second Life.

So, while Nancy Pelosi was making history in real life Capitol Hill, Rep. George Miller and a bunch of reporters and Second Life enthusiasts made there own little bit of history. Will Second Life become a tool that will help make our government more transparent.