Mark Jahnke, who identifies himself as a former Capitol Hill staffer whose job was to take all the phone calls coming into his Senator’s office, describes an effective way to call your Congresspeople in a recent status update to Facebook. The main point: All those scripts being mailed to us by MoveOn and CREDO and many other activist groups may be doing more harm than good — the staffer isn’t paid to care why you oppose or support something. Their job is to note down the number of people who oppose and/or support something — and anything else wastes time. Here’s Mark’s advice:
"Hi, my name is Mark, I'm a constituent from Seattle, zip code 98***, I don't need a response. I am opposed to banning the sale of blueberries and I encourage the Senator to please oppose implementation of any such ban. Thanks for your hard work answering the phones!"
And that’s it, folks. Don’t bog them down with why you hate blueberry bans. It’s not the important part. The important part is that there’s an issue, you’re a constituent, and you have a position on that issue which will influence your future votes.
You can read the entire Facebook status at the above link, which explains why each part of this script is important.
