Posted on 12/28/2018 6:32:12 AM PST by daniel1212
Is there any point in writing to a congressperson? Are letters or calls they receive actually likely to affect their choices?
Greg Beuke, former Congressional Intern at U.S. Senate (2004) Answered Dec 12 · Featured on Quora's Twitter · Upvoted by Carter Moore, Degree in Political Science, former Congressional aide and Federal employee and Kate Rothwell, writer with books published by Kensington, Ellora's Cave, Simon and Schuster, Carina, Samhain and o…
As a former intern for a United States Senator, I can tell you exactly what happens when you write to a congressperson. One of my key intern duties was sorting the mail.
Every day a big stack of mail came in. And every day my fellow interns and I sorted it. Sorting the mail meant giving each piece of mail to the appropriate congressional staff member.
To give you some context, this is the hierarchy of a typical U.S. Senate office:
The Senator (and yes, every Senator is the Senator in their own office) The Chief of Staff (kind of like the CEO, rockstar #2 of the office) The Legislative Director (the guy in charge of advancing legislation) Assistant Legislative Director (the guy behind the guy) Legislative Aides (aka LA’s, the top level of regular staff) Legislative Correspondents (aka LC’s, the bottom level of regular staff) Interns (we worked 10 hours a day for free!)
The mail, which was almost always addressed to the Senator, was typically handled entirely at levels 5–7.
Pro tip: call and get the names of the people at levels 2–4, then address your mail directly to one of them. But they’re busy, so make it good!
I, as an intern, opened and read the mail. The first decision I made was whether it would go to a legislative aide or a legislative correspondent.
If the mail was written by a company or organization, it would go to an LA. Now these legislative aides actually got to speak with the Senator about their policy areas somewhat regularly. Some of them were even in their 40’s and 50’s!
If the mail was written by a regular person, known as a constituent, it would go to an LC. That is the entry level position for paid staff, typically a first job out of college. The upper age range was mid 20’s. There is little opportunity to influence the Senator from this position.
Pro tip: if you are self-employed, write your letter on company letterhead and frame it in terms of your business, so that your letter will reach a legislative aide.
A regular constituent would write a letter. Based on that, I knew that it should go to an LC. Each LC and LA are assigned different subjects, or policy areas. I, the lowly intern, would read the letter just long enough to figure out the subject. Once I knew that, I knew which LC should receive it, and I put it in his or her pile of mail.
So for example, let’s say you write a letter about immigration. Jane is the lucky LC who has been assigned the topic of immigration. I put your letter on Jane’s desk.
Jane adds your letter to her large stack of letters. Jane will read your letter and determine whether you are for or against immigration. No, Jane will not be considering the nuances of what you wrote, such as being for legal immigration, but against illegal immigration.
When she finally gets to your letter, Jane will read it just long enough to determine which side of the issue you are on, so that you receive the form letter intended for people who agree with you.
Pro tip: write about an obscure topic. That way, there might not already be a form letter, and your letter could actually cause the staff and Senator to formulate a position on the issue!
Next, Jane will print out and mail your form letter to you, along with the dozens or hundreds of similar letters that will go out that day. Thank you so much for writing. Constituent letters like yours are very important, and I always love hearing from the people of our great state. Sincerely, your Senator.
Yeah, about that “signature” on your letter… We didn’t even use a signature stamp. The form letters were printed out with the blue signature of the Senator already on it!
Your letter never made it anywhere near your Senator or Representative. Think about it. For a Senate office, there are about 10 LC’s whose job consists almost entirely of what I just described Jane doing. Even the LC’s and interns don’t have time to read everybody’s letters, let alone the actual Senators!
And here’s another little secret—a lot of Senate and Congressional offices don’t even keep track of how many people write or call them on different sides of the issue!
We didn’t!
I remember answering the phone and a guy telling me what he thought about an issue, and then telling me to add him to the list. I just said ok. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that there was no list.
I will say that calls and letters that are part of an organized campaign can potentially be effective. Even if a Congressperson’s office is not keeping a tally, if the phones are ringing off the hook and mail is flooding in for a few days, someone is going to tell them about that. And if they don’t already have a strongly held position on the issue, a barrage of calls and letters could very well make the difference.
Pro tip: write or call your elected representatives as part of an organized group effort, not as an individual on an ad hoc basis. Better yet, be the one to organize the group!
So is there any point in writing to your Congressperson? With the exception of the above tips, probably not if your goal is to actually influence what they will do.
But you can write them to get a real autographed picture, or a big U.S. flag that may or may not have been flown over the Capitol!
And if you are going to be traveling to D.C., call their office ahead of time and you and your family or group can get a free guided tour of the U.S. Capitol, provided by some lucky intern!
Even the little underground train from your Senator’s office building to the Capitol is a pretty cool ride!
As soon as the six figure check you staple to it clears.
America has the best politicians that money can buy.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
You got that right.
They are in office to accomplish one thing: get re-elected.
Any contact information you give them on a letter, phone #, or email addy will just be added to their donor solicitation (shake down) list
No, complete waste of time and all it accomplishes is to get you on their mailing list.
Only if there are a substantial number of letters on a subject. If you’re one of a few, you have wasted your time, a stamp, or electricity. They are going to do what they are going to do. But write anyway - you don’t know how many other people are writing.
I have written several times to congressmen and senators. They do respond just not to your communication. You will get a nice form letter thanking you and then you will be bombarded with emails or letters telling you of all the great stuff they are doing for you and ....
Never once will any of them actually address the concerns in your letters.
Everyone is a F-——g POS waste of good oxygen.
My attempts at writing senators /congressmen started with the run-up to the GCA of 1968 when I was stationed in Germany. The Act passed and cost me a cherry Browning Hi Power and Walther PPK. Then and for many ensuing decades I found that writing about my issue (gun control) was an absolute waste of time. These useless democrat (and occasional republicans) bastards are beyond reach since their loyalty is strictly to the party line and not the USA. I gave up long ago.
I once received a form letter from Tom Carper’s office (I refuse to use a title, since that signifies respect. I have none.). He said that he listened to both sides, then made up his mind and voted the way he wanted.
I’ve given writin and calling the Fake Congress members. They don’t care or listen. It’s all about who gives them money. There’s a five letter word, beginning with “w” and ending with “e” for such a person.
BTW! Our current bankruptcy laws were written by Bank of America and delivered to Joe Biden and Tom Carper. Introduced, passed and signed.
Ping. You’ll be interested in this.
Last attempt I made to contact a representative, I made an appointment with my Senator. The first question out of their mouths was “what organization are you with” and when the answer was “none”, they dismissed me immediately.
It would be interesting to find out if people registered with the opposing party get ignored more than letters from voters of the same party or undeclared voters.
UHHHH...no. They work for themselves not you
The messsage they will always hear is the one you send in the voting booth.
They aren’t going to be swayed on the issues. If you want something, some kind of help with something, get a party committeeperson, or an influential minister, or somebody in local government to write a letter supporting yours and maybe you’ll make more headway.
And that is what counts as “representation”.
If they get enough letters saying they’re going to be hung if they come back home. Maybe.
The "voice" told me he thought McCain would consider such a suggestion to be antagonistic and hung up.
Unless you are a million dollar donor they can’t take the time to listen.
They are all RINO’s and are in for the money my two from NC act like NJ transplants.
I was a National Retail Sales Tax (now the FAIRtax) lobbyist in WDC FRom April, 1996 until February. 2004.
During that time, I was told by numerous House and Senate aides and by some Representatives and Senators, that they counted the correspondence as “Yeas” and “Nays” on whatever the particular subject happened to be. IOW, they created a “tally sheet,” and claimed to use these numbers to influence policy and voting behavior.
The rule of thumb was that 100 comments on a particular subject represented 1000 voters. The objective was to get enough support for the NRST (FAIRtax) such that the Congresscritter would co-sponser the legislation for fear that non-support would lead to election disaster next time around.
And, in some cases, we were successful in changing a few Congresscritters minds - but it was a struggle!
HST, the nine years I was in WDC were in an entirely different era. I don’t think that the hyper-partisanship we see now is conducive to Congresscritters adhering to the desires of their constituents except when seeking their vote.
Democrats, in particular, do PRECISELY what their leadership demands of them, irrespective of constituent desires. Republicans do also, but they are not in as lock step with their leadership as are Democrats.
I believe that, nowadays, constituent desires, wants, and needs are at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to Congresscritter voting, policy, positioning, etc. etc. priorities.
The objective of ALL lobbyists is to put enough pressure on a Congresscritter to get him/her to support whatever legislation/position/policy the lobbyist is lobbying for.
Writing big check is the best way to do that! Pay to play?
Letters, phone calls, emails, etc., etc. is, IMHO, not that successful a tactic, as the Mr. Beuke demonstrates - and he was an intern in 2004, the year I left WDC.
We, as conservatives, have to seek out, support and elect Congresscritters who view the world much as we do - it appears that once in office, they are not so persuadable!
Is it, indeed, a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing?
The only way they listen is it they are flooded with angry birds phone calls.
“...Is there any point in writing to a congressperson? Are...they actually likely to affect...choices?...”
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