Believe it or not, members of Congress tend to love to hear from people. They are, by and large, passionately dedicated to doing the job they lobbied for and were hired to do by their electorate. Since the job is acting as a representative for the states (Senate) and people (House of Representatives), their best way of knowing they are on point is through feedback.
If there is a state or district that is willing to elect or re-elect some slackard that can’t be bothered with his or her constituency, they deserve what they get. Sorry, but that’s the end of story. If are caught up in nonsense like this, well, you can live with it, leave it, or change it–and accept that you have your work cut out for you.
Almost all members of Congress have:
- A phone number you can call
- An email address to which you can write
- A snail-mail address to which you can write
- A Twitter account to which you can tweet
- A Facebook account to which you can post
- Other (Check it out)
There are some things that you should/must be prepared to do to have any hope of communicating effectively with a member of Congress:
- Believe that what you have to say is important to say, important enough to say it clearly and clearly on point.
- Remember the admonition that you should write as though your audience is smarter than you are but totally ignorant of what you are talking about.
- Consider that they are far, far more interested in knowing what you are thinking first with knowing what you are feeling as a distant second (Just like you, maybe).
- This may seem harsh, but if your congressperson is going to actually do something about your issue, clearly knowing what you think is going to make that much easier for him or her to do rather than trying to figure out something from your feelings.
- If you simply cannot write (or say) down what you want to say without getting way too emotional, write it down, all of it. Let it sit for a week or so. See if you can whittle some of the emotionalism out of it. Keep asking what you would like to see if someone was reaching out to you. Believe it or not, the more factual and the less emotional your statement is, the more powerful it will be. Composition 101.
- If you feel like you got it right in the first draft, you probably didn’t get it right. You just might have got it right. But you probably didn’t.
- Accept that you will most likely never get anything more than some sort of auto-reply from the member of Congress. A thick hide is useful.
- Accept that there are more issues for you to address and more people to address them to than you have time for.
- Budget the time you can spend on a regular basis.
- Prioritize the issues that interest you.
- Prioritize which members of Congress you will contact.
- Create a prioritized list of who you want to contact about which issue as a living (changeable) document.
- Commit to the list.
Some links:
Your representative , House of Representatives leadership
Your senator, Senate leadership
Congressional staffs
Congressional committees