Before grilling BP and Transoceanic officials, Rep. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) went on Facebook to solicit questions from his constituents.

When Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) wanted to promote his son's Senate campaign, he also took to Facebook -- to ask for donations.

These two ways of reaching out to Internet followers are both typical uses of the social networking site among the more than 300 Members of Congress who maintain online profiles there.

But under Congressional rules, Members who do one can't necessarily do the other.

Facebook pages created and run by a lawmaker's staff can promote official activity, but they can't raise money. Campaign-run pages, meantime, have to be careful about conducting official business.

"The distinction is all about who can fund the activity," said John Wonderlich, the policy director for the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation. "The whole idea behind restricting campaign activity is to restrict them from using taxpayer money in order to keep incumbents from having an unfair advantage."

When they sign up for Facebook, Members must designate whether their page is official, and therefore governed by franking rules, or a campaign page, which isn't subject to the rules of conduct for Congressional communication.

Heinreich opted for the official route. That means the Democrat's page links exclusively from his official House website, is run by Congressional staff and touts only official duties as a representative from New Mexico.

He can't blast political speech to his more than 1,000 followers, but Heinrich spokesman John Blair said the office likes the authoritativeness of being able to speak to followers as a Representative, not a candidate.

"There's a certain legitimacy that constituents give to an official record from their Congressman," Blair said. "When the Congressman is working in his official capacity, he's representing everyone" in his district.
Paul, on the other hand, prefers the campaign route.

"Rep. Paul wants to use his personal Facebook to be able to do lots of different things," said Jesse Benton, Paul's political director, who maintains the page. "By not having the constraints of having it tied to his official office, we like the flexibility that affords us."

So when Paul's son, Rand, found himself in a tough GOP Senate primary in Kentucky, Ron Paul asked his more than 200,000 Facebook followers to contribute to his son's campaign. "Every dollar will help fight back the false attacks," he wrote.

A downside, Wonderlich said, is that it could be improper and maybe even illegal for the same staff that deals with fundraising to solicit questions from constituents to ask in an official committee hearing. But the rules are always evolving, he added.

"When you put it online … suddenly those lines don't always stand up very well," he said. "It's funny because online, those roles sometimes look pretty similar. A lot of people aren't aware that they might be looking at the campaign one or the official one."

Both types of page allow politicians to highlight television appearances, update followers on travel schedules and post videos of committee hearings and floor speeches.

And some Members maintain two pages to be able to have the best of both worlds.

Another benefit of an official page is that it appears on a Facebook page recently created by the company to highlight innovative uses of the site among Members of Congress.

Facebook created "Congress on Facebook"   last month as a place to aggregate official Member profiles and show ways politicians are using medium. It has more than 8,000 followers.

Most pages listed there are pages for individual Members or committees but three aren't: A page for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 , one called "Fixing Senate Rules" and another touting health care reform.

The listing of Member pages does not include those run by campaigns, however.

That means the three top Democratic Senators, Harry Reid (Nev.), Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), are absent, as are the two top House Republicans, John Boehner (Ohio) and Eric Cantor (Va.).

"The thinking is this is more to serve as an official resource," said Adam Conner, Facebook's associate manager for public policy. "That's official meaning not on the campaign side."

A few days after speaking with Congress.org, Facebook created a new U.S. Politics on Facebook   page to highlight use of the site by campaigns.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to curb bias against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. His staff created a page to promote the bill, which is currently in committee.

Staff from the office of Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) created the other page to promote his ongoing effort to make it harder to filibuster during next Congressional session.

"The issue has generated a lot of interest," said Udall spokeswoman Marissa Padilla. "The Senator has received quite a bit of feedback on his personal fan page on the issue and he thought he could direct everyone to one central place."

But Facebook isn't trying to promote the specific issues, said Conner. They are rather underscoring the fact that Members are using Facebook to do so.

"We're looking to highlight great examples of what members are doing on Facebook," he said. "Senators have decided to use Facebook as an avenue to promote pieces of legislation. It is an official page run by an official Member's office."

Daniel Newhauser writes for Roll Call.

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