Contacting Your Representatives, Part 1

While it often seems that they have forgotten this crucial fact, our elected representatives work for us: We the People.

I spent some time working in DC for my Congressman back in 2007 and, in addition to my other duties, I worked a great deal with constituent correspondence. During my time there I handled tens of thousands of phone calls, emails, faxes and letters. My congressman’s office was above average in responsiveness to constituents and we worked hard to make sure that every form of contact got a response. However, some letters, faxes, emails and phone calls grabbed our attention more than others. These were the contacts which were most likely to carry weight and get mentioned to the Congressman.

With activism on the rise, more and more organizations encourage people to contact their representatives. Many employ blast faxes, form emails, phone scripts or postcards that you just have to sign and drop in the mail. These are all legitimate forms of contact but none of them will grab a staffer or Congressman’s attention. In my congressman’s office it was not unusual for us to make 1000 constituent contacts in a given day (emails+phone calls+faxes+letters). Out of that large number of contacts there might be only 10 that really grabbed our attention. The rest are tallied and responded to but don’t have much of an impact.
What I want to do here is give you some tips for effectively contacting your elected officials. The same rules generally apply whether you are calling Congress, your state legislature or your city councilman. If you follow these rules, your time will be much better spent and you are more likely to have a substantive impact on your representative’s actions!

Before I start breaking things down in terms of specific mediums of communication let me share some general rules: Put as much effort into preparing to contact your representative as you want them to put into their reply. Just like when you write a letter to a friend, if you want a substantive, well thought out reply then make sure your initial contact is more than a form letter or a flame email. One well thought out constituent contact has a greater impact than 50 form emails. In fact, in many cases we couldn’t even verify that an actual constituent had any part in the contact process. A number of organizations collect email address from members and then blast out form emails to congressmen without getting input from the members. This just makes life difficult for staffers and gives little advantage to your cause.

The number one key is to make the contact personal. The office is unlikely to respond unless they have reason to believe that a real, live constituent was the origin of the contact. If you show that you care, they will pay attention.
If you are sending a fax, sign it. Due to the prevalence of “blast-faxing,” we would not respond to a fax that was not personally signed. I’m not familiar with the systems on the state level but at the US Capitol all faxes show up basically as email. However, a well-written, signed fax makes a bigger impact than an email. Hand writing is better than typing, unless your handwriting is unclear, since this is further evidence of the strength of your conviction and that you are not some kind of machine.

Email is by far the most common medium of communication with Congressmen. They are easy to send, no postage is required and the time needed to type one up is low. However, the vast majority of the emails we received were form emails which were not customized at all. If it was clear that they were sent from a third party organization or website, then the emails were deleted. If they were just a form email submitted by the constituent then they were given a pretty formulaic response. However, if it was clear that the email was personally written, it received a personal answer. Make sure that you include a mailing address with your email. If you do, then it’s likely that you will get a physical piece of mail which lends itself to a greater feeling of accomplishment.

Part two of this blog piece will be posted shortly!