U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) took the stage at SXSW on March 11 to discuss The Startup Act, a bill authored with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) to promote entrepreneurship. His presentation, “Encouraging Innovation and Empowering Entrepreneurs” was targeted to get the tech community talking on social media channels about this new bill.

In an article from Silicon Prairie News, Sen. Moran referenced the enormous social media response to SOPA and PIPA as a key element of his strategy in going forward to promote The Startup Act. While he said he didn’t expect to get the same level of response that SOPA did, he said that social media communities have piqued the interest of congress members and messages are in fact, being heard.

What do you think of politicians using social media to encourage conversation in order to leverage their initiatives? After the huge response that SOPA and PIPA received, do you think it’s possible for other bills or issues to receive similar outpourings in social media?