alt Hacker NewsWhat reason do you have to think that writing Congressmen changes the slightest thing? Even when they receive a pile of related letters? Seems to me this wouldnt shift the needle at all vs lobbying interests. Seems to me that there is a general unrealistic idealism and faith in democracy at play here.
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This is correct. At this point all constituents believe something like "oh that's just a MAGAT and they don't matter" and throw it in the garbage. I personally think all congress people left or right should be thrown out if they don't personally reply. We're paying them to do this. If many people write about the same issue, they should not have to reply personally, but they should hold a press conference, recorded town hall or issue a statement.
We're losing our government and voice to radicalization.
From what I know about legislators (I am a longtime SF resident but I am also a DC native and have known some congressional staff over the years), it is pretty rare that informed constituents write to them in a cogent and authentic voice about specific legislation, and they do pay attention to this.
Calls may work even more.
It won't work all the time and how much they do will depend on the issue and why they are supporting it etc. But it's worth a shot.
Remember I said: they should know you're paying attention. This can cause them to also pay attention.
It is better to at least do what can be done instead of accepting a defeat without even trying.
Each congressperson's staff gathers all of the comments they get, counts them up, and reports back to the congressperson, passing along anything they think would be useful information; if you write a clear and careful letter about an obscure topic there's a decent chance the congressperson themself will see it. Congresspeople typically have local ties in their area and caring what their constituents think is their job.
It's a serious problem that there are some congresspeople who don't do any local events, send all comments straight to the trash, etc. You should vote those folks out.
In the longer term, we should push for significantly increasing the size of the US House of Representatives to 5–10x the current size and implement serious campaign finance reforms. In combination, these will help make congresspeople more responsive to constituents and less reliant on donors.