they're not quite the luddites you would have them made out to be. many (very many) carry blackberry 957s, for instance. this started right after the anthrax. nobody wants paper down there, trust me on that one.
i work in a company where people take laptops to conferences and meetings, and they don't pay attention at all. they might as well have not shown up at all. actually, it's worse than that, because they distract all the people around them.
although, I am not sure how congress could be LESS productive than they are now, and it would damned good fun to sit in a session and run EtherPEG for a while. I bet it would be enough to make anyone blush.
http://www.oreillynet.com/1414.html