Well, the people are speaking out at GOP town halls across the nation. It was so effective that the GOP has shut down the whole town hall meeting format.
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NEW — House Republicans are putting the brakes on town halls after blowback over the Trump administration's cuts.
One GOP aide said House Republican leaders are urging lawmakers to stop engaging in them altogether.
www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...
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— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel.bsky.social) February 25, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Since this is the case, how does one register their views on important issues of the day?
Thankfully, there are ways to reach the offices of your member of Congress.
- Each member of Congress has a Washington, DC office you can call as well as a local office you can call or visit. EDIT: On a tip in the comments below, it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED callers try the local offices first. Use the House and Senate directory to find your members of Congress and the numbers for their local offices.
- Each one also has an email address in which you can send and receive emails. You can also use their “in-house” system which is a webform providing a place to input your info, classify a topic, provide a subject line, and then space for specific communication (the "body") of an email.
- They almost all have social media accounts you can interact with.
- Finally, there is the option of faxing or using snail mail to contact your member of Congress.
This article is meant to encourage readers to contact their members of Congress. It will cover how to send a more effective message and the pros and cons of each method of communication. But first it will cover WHY it is important for us to send messages to your representatives with dissent and praise.
Why bother? They don’t respond back…
This is a common refrain from many people who don’t see the point of contacting members of Congress. This couldn’t be farther from the truth!
Your legislators notice when the phone lines get lit up, when their email inboxes are full, and the mail center is stuffed with letters. It has been said that forty calls an hour for a legislator is a flood, and higher than that is a tsunami.
It was noticed with alarm recently when President Musk started accessing sensitive government systems. 1600 calls per minute! That’s 96,000 calls per hour and over 2.3 MILLION calls a day for the entire Senate system. For each senator, that averages out to 16 per minute, 960 per hour, and over 23,000 a day. That doesn’t count calls to local offices which aren’t tracked!
Snail mail volumes also get high rather quickly. About a decade ago, this was the average. It has likely only grown since then.
Unlike call volume, the data on mail sent to Congress is public, and it suggests that, at least among the politically active, the U.S. Postal Service remains popular; the Senate alone received more than 6.4 million letters last year [in 2016].
I was unable to find figures on e-mails, office visits, and social media posts but suffice to say that these are increasing in volume as well. EVERY attempt at communication is listened to even if you don’t like the response or lack thereof.
So what is the point of encouraging large amounts of contact with elected officials?
This New Yorker article from 2017 goes into great detail on how constituents interact with members of Congress. Constituents can stiffen the spine of the opposition, and it gives the ruling party some choice words to consider if the proceed with controversial legislation. The calls and letters against repealing the Affordable Care Act are a case in point.
Most unanticipated of all, Republicans have been stalling and backpedaling on the Affordable Care Act, which was originally expected to be the earliest, fastest, and most thorough casualty of the Trump Administration. Like nearly everyone I spoke with, Chad Chitwood, a former congressional staffer, attributed the fact that it’s still around chiefly to constituents clamoring to keep it. “Watching the way that the Republican Party was gleeful at being able to get rid of the A.C.A. and then started hearing from people who did not realize they were on it or did not realize what was going to happen if it was taken away—I think that’s why we’re seeing the slowdown,” he said. “Otherwise, they would have already taken it away.”
Perhaps the most striking shift so far, though, has happened on the Democratic side of the aisle, in the form of a swift and dramatic stiffening of the spine. In the past month, at the insistence of constituents, the party line has changed from a cautious willingness to work with the White House to staunch and nearly unified opposition.
Everything old is new again. Those calls, letters, and emails are what likely stiffened the spine of supine Democratic members of Congress in the past few weeks. The impact on the GOP will take longer but already there are some signs that President Musk has worn out his welcome on Capitol Hill.
Now, there are priorities amongst the vast volume of constituent communications. First, constituents that need help with the government get priority treatment. An example from 2018 shows that these small problems constituents face often get turned into potential legislation.
Last year, a military veteran living in Massachusetts's sixth congressional district tossed aside a piece of mail from the Veterans Administration, without realizing that the information he needed to access his benefits was buried at the end of the six-page letter. Once he realized his mistake, he called the office of Seth Moulton, his representative.
“He said, ‘I realize they sent a letter, and I should read every line, but come on! Six pages and you’re putting this in the last paragraph?’” recalls Andy Flick, Moulton’s deputy chief of staff.
Case workers in Moulton’s office helped the man sort out his problems with the VA. But they also brought the issue to Moulton’s legislative team to see if they could help fix the underlying system that created such a clunky letter. Now, that team is drafting a piece of legislation—tentatively named the Too Long; Didn’t Read Act—which would require government agencies to spell out actionable steps for constituents in a black box on the front page of any piece of mail.
Next, contacting members of Congress about smaller nonpartisan issues is more likely to lead to success. Again, potential legislation is crafted from these small interactions.
Actually, this strategy [contacting your representative] does work in a surprising number of cases, though probably not the ones that you’re thinking of. If you ask your senator to co-sponsor a bill on mud-flap dimensions or to propose a change to the bottling requirements for apple cider or to vote in favor of increased funding for a rare childhood disease, you stand a decent chance of succeeding. This is not a trivial point, since such requests make up the majority of those raised by constituents. (They also represent the underappreciated but crucial role that average citizens play in the legislative process. “I’ve written bills that became law because people called to complain about a particular issue I was unaware of,” Akin, of Senator Wyden’s office, said. It was constituents, for instance, who educated Congress about America’s opioid crisis and got members to dedicate funds and draft health legislation to begin dealing with it.)
The bottom priority (other than crackpot calls) are communications that are focused on the hyper-partisan issues of the day. I’ve demonstrated above that these calls still matter! They are logged and tallied and presented to members of Congress. They just have lower odds of being meaningful if not done on a massive scale.
If, however, you want a member of Congress to vote your way on a matter of intense partisan fervor—immigration, education, entitlement programs, health insurance, climate change, gun control, abortion—your odds of success are, to understate matters, considerably slimmer. To borrow an example from the C.M.F.’s Brad Fitch, four well-informed doctors might persuade a senator to support the use of a certain surgical procedure in V.A. hospitals, but four hundred thousand phone calls to a senator are unlikely to change his position on the appropriate use of American military power overseas.
Just don’t expect a meaningful response right away. During times without much volume, it is estimated that a reply takes about a week. During high volume times (such as now), it can take as long as a MONTH to get a reply!
So which means of contact is the best one?
Each method of contact has its advantages and disadvantages. In the end, it all boils down to what you are comfortable doing in communicating to your member of Congress. You should also consider what method the office feels is best for the occasion as well. For instance, I dread phone calls so you will never hear me communicate that way if I can help it. Play to your own strengths. The key point is that the best method is the one that will actually happen!
Phone Calls
Pros: easy to tally for and against a bill, flexible options for where to call, calls are quick.
Cons: full inboxes, jammed lines, have to build up the courage to make the call
Email and/or Government System
Pros: quickest method of contact, easy to create a template, always a record
Cons: easy to have an AI template response, everyone does it so most emails get ignored
Snail Mail and/or Faxes
Pros: will get noticed if done right, can write more than other methods, easy to personalize
Cons: snail mail is NOT QUICK AT ALL
Letters to the Editor
Pros: legislators read these more often, public can see the dialogue as well
Cons: newspaper may not accept your letter
Office Visits
Pros: definitely will talk to a human, could have a quality discussion, not many do it
Cons: have to schedule it, lots of preparation time, no record, need to follow up, could be inconvenient location
Attending Public Sessions
Pros: usually get the attention of your legislator if you are persistent
Cons: schedule not always disclosed, may be inconvenient location
Social Media
Pros: can get away with anonymity
Cons: mostly ignored because they cannot verify you are a constituent, some platforms have limitations, share the space with trolls and misinformation
Informal Network of Friends
Pros: build connections, easy to pass on a message without formality
Cons: no record of the interaction, reliant on other people
How to send a message that will get noticed
There are some tips and tricks to getting your message noticed. A lot depends upon the method of communication you choose to reach them of course. However, no matter the method these dos and don’ts apply.
- DO leave your name, address, phone number, and zip code. This shows that you are a constituent of that member of Congress and gives you a better chance of getting a reply.
- DON’T CONTACT ANY MEMBER OF CONGRESS EXCEPT YOUR OWN. I know it is tempting to reach out to well-known members of Congress. If you aren't a constituent, those messages go straight into the trash or are ignored. There are exceptions of course. Contacting a member of Congress on a relevant committee with your knowledge or unique story would be acceptable for instance.
- DO sound informed about the issue you are contacting about. If it is about a bill, give the ID number. If it is about an issue, give relevant information to support your position. Be brief.
- DON’T come unprepared for the contact. If you ramble on about whatever is on your mind the person on the other side will not react favorably.
- DO give a personal story about how the legislation or issue affects you. Add a human touch to the contact because those are more memorable. Plus, if compelling enough, your legislator could use you as the next example in a speech or even an ad!
- DON’T use scripted communications. Many advocacy organizations have scripts they use to mass contact representatives. Those are treated with particular disdain and will promptly be ignored.
- DO remember etiquette when contacting them, especially if you are angry or frustrated. Remember that the person receiving the message is likely a low-level intern or maybe a staffer if you get lucky. They aren’t there for you to abuse just because their boss is a wanker.
- DON’T go in having high expectations for change. Legislators have many competing influences on their time. Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others. Money talks first and loudest.
- DO contact your members of Congress for doing the right thing almost as much as for doing something you are angry about. It will stand out more amidst the flood of negative calls they often get.
- DON’T repeatedly harass your legislator about the same issue. If they aren’t going to budge on something, contacting them over and over again will just get you mostly ignored. Yes, it will go into the database as being for or against on an issue or bill but nothing substantive beyond that.
- Finally, DO proper and limited follow-up with your contact — especially if you go to their offices. Think of it as a follow-up to a job interview where you could offer thanks, clarify a point that may have been unclear, or explain “next steps”.
Additionally, you want to make sure that you follow up on the meeting with additional contacts by phone or email. Congressional offices routinely compile tallies for members of how many cumulative contacts — emails, calls, meetings — they receive, and how many they get on each issue.
The goal is to open a dialogue with the people who influence your members of Congress — their staffers and aides. There’s no guarantee you will get anything but a scripted message back, but following the tips above give higher chances of real interactions with their offices.
Conclusion
If you did not read it, I highly recommend reading this article from the New Yorker titled “What Calling Congress Achieves”. It is paywalled but if you open an incognito/private window you should be able to read it. Fair use prevented me from discussing ALL of the great information found in it.
Here’s an example of a coordinated strategy posted by Daily Kos user robertjpetersen in Ohio to contact their members of Congress. Notice they are trying almost all of the different methods listed above.
Contacting your member of Congress is a delicate game. If you do it too often the Congressional office will begin to discount what you say every time you do it. If you do it not frequently enough it is hard for the Congressional office to open a dialogue with you. Do it when the opportunity presents itself and ALWAYS BE PREPARED.
Finally, I said it before and I will say it again — DO NOT CONTACT A MEMBER OF CONGRESS THAT IS NOT YOUR OWN.
