Corresponding with Congress
Reprinted with permission of Charity
Lobbying in the Public Interest (CLPI)
June, 2004
Sending your correspondence
to members of Congress in a way that will get their attention is a fundamental
concern of all public charities wanting to influence public policy.
Recent changes related to electronic mail, faxes, and websites have
modified how correspondence is received in Congress and therefore, what
is the best way, currently, to send correspondence.
You can get information on corresponding with individual Senators at
www.senate.gov. and individual House members at www.house.gov. Fax numbers,
postal mail addresses and how to contact the legislator by email are
available through those sources. All members of the Senate and House
may be reached by telephone through the main Capitol number (202) 224-3121
although that number is often busy.
While the means by which correspondence is delivered to Congress has
changed in recent years, how to compose an effective message has not.
Following are changes that can make an important difference in getting
your message heard, on time. Also included below are some tips about
how to effectively state your message.
Postal mail
In 1998, the last year for which information is available, House offices
received 40 million pieces of mail and the Senate received 35 million.
The competition for having attention paid to your letter is intense.
In addition, postal mail now takes ten days and sometimes even as long
as two months to arrive because of the time involved in the radiation
process applied to all postal mail, growing out of the recent anthrax/ricin
threats.
The sheer volume and slow movement of postal mail makes it a less attractive
but still important means of corresponding. Obviously, you wouldn’t
use postal mail if you were writing about an issue that might come up
for a vote in the next few days or even the following week. Still, a
carefully written postal letter that does not appear to be a form letter
(which is often part of a campaign) will get serious attention if it
is from a Representative’s district, a Senator’s state,
or relates to a Member’s committee assignment. Postal letters
usually demonstrate a greater amount of effort on the part of the sender
than some other means of communication and the more obvious the effort
the more seriously the communication is taken.
Faxes
There is growing evidence that faxes are the best way to correspond
with Congress. Congressional offices check the fax machine regularly
throughout the day and faxes are passed on to the legislative correspondent
who will draft a response. Email, on the other hand, often is checked
only several times a week. If you are corresponding on an issue that
is coming up within a short period of time, to be safe, send a fax.
Email
About 20% of the mail received by Congress is postal, 20% faxes and
60% email. By May of 2001, Congress was receiving a million email messages
a day. While the email total is impressive, Congressional staff raise
the same questions about it as some other forms of mass correspondence.
Much of the email that is programmed through websites can usually be
easily identified as motivated by the same kind of effort backing junk
mail. “Click and send” messages that come in volume through
websites have the same “markings” as post cards or bulk
mail and don’t get the personal attention given to correspondence
that is not programmed.
Emails, even click and sends, will be answered but are much less likely
to be seen by the Congressperson’s own eyes. However, if the attempt
is to show large numbers of people care about the issue, it still may
be useful to the lobby campaign.
Despite the questionable importance that may be assigned to email by
Congressional staff, many activist organizations use it because it is
less expensive than faxes, organized telephone efforts and preprinted
postcards or paper action alerts. Also email can get the word out instantaneously
to the grassroots and generate almost immediate responses to Congress.
And that speed may be essential given that congressional agendas often
change.
Organizations are learning that like traditional forms of communication,
email campaigns should be used sparingly, focusing on the right time,
targeting information to the right audience, and insuring that the emails
come from the right sources. They have recognized that spammed email
messages to Congress are usually ignored. On the other hand, these groups
have reported very impressive results from well-directed email alerts.
Congress has recently placed a number of restrictions on email. For
example, you can no longer send email to a House member if you do not
live in that House member’s congressional district. House members
have established filters through an email service program that forces
the sender to indicate where the sender lives. This affects, for example,
being able to email members of a congressional committee because people
who may want to communicate with committee members on an issue the committee
is considering may not be from any of the congressional districts represented
by the committee members. There is not a similar filter program for
all offices in the Senate although individual Senate offices use a variety
of means to filter out unwanted email.
Message content
While knowing what means to use to deliver your message is important,
the crafting of the message content is essential. Here are some tips
from congressional staff regarding what is most likely to get attention
and move your message along in a congressional office.
1. State in the first sentence your position on the issue in question.
2. State what action you would like the legislator to take and tell
how the enactment of the legislation will affect you or your organization.
3. Demonstrate that you know the issue and feel strongly about it.
4. Tell a personal story that relates to the legislation.
5. Make sure that your information is accurate.
6. Highlight a novel issue to get more attention.
7. Avoid sending correspondence that can be easily identified as programmed.
8. Legible, handwritten letters get attention.
9. Postcards get little attention unless they are handwritten and legible.
10. Always provide a return address on both the communication and the
envelope. Envelopes often become detached from the correspondence. Also,
include the date.
11. If you would like to invite your Congressperson to your function,
make the request in writing several months in advance. Follow up by
phone with the Member’s scheduler.
One Last Word on Corresponding with Legislators
If the response you get does not answer the question you asked, it’s
perfectly acceptable to correspond back to the legislator, state that
the response didn’t answer your question, restate your question
and ask politely but firmly for an answer.
Some of the information regarding postal mail, faxes
and email in this publication was taken from "Congress and the
Internet," by James A Thurber and Colton C. Campbell. 2003
