We're now linking to legislators' Mastodon accounts from their pages on GovTrack.

@GovTrack Appreciate the work.

As a question on Don Beyer specifically, where is the verification happening? (not showing a verified link and I don't see a reference to any Mastodon account on https://beyer.house.gov)

U.S. Representative Don Beyer

U.S. Representative Don Beyer Proudly Serving the 8th District of Virginia

@pixelpusher220 @danielschuman can you answer this ^ q?

@GovTrack @pixelpusher220 Yes, I am personally verifying each account, and the verification method is noted in the spreadsheet.

In most instances I receive an email from an official congressional account that terminates mail.house.gov. One or two linked to their mastodon accounts from twitter, but that is rare.

@GovTrack @pixelpusher220 For Rep Beyer, I’ve been DMing with his comms staffer who let me know he was on Mastodon. Having interacted with him IRL, I was able to confirm.
@GovTrack @pixelpusher220 obviously, this approach does not scale, which is why I’m talking to congress about establishing their own mastodon instance. That way member presence there would be self-verification.

@danielschuman @GovTrack

Yep, that's what I've been thinking as well. Same as how you know email is official...it's in the name itself.