A Common Sense Approach
Communicate your opinion
Speak up!
Lawmakers cannot help solve your problem if you have not
told them about it. You may feel as though
you are one voice in our big country, but if
you don't
speak up, who is going to do it for you?
If each concerned citizen did their part to
contact their lawmakers, it would have a powerful effect
on the decisions lawmakers make. Your job is to educate lawmakers
about your opinion.
There are several ways to educate your lawmakers
- write a letter to them, make a telephone call to his
or her office, send them an e-mail, or meet
with them.
Writing letters
Second only to meeting with the lawmaker, letters
are the most respected form of communication from constituents. A
letter writer is practically
guaranteed to get a response from a lawmaker.
Letters do not have to be literary masterpieces. All you
need to do is state your concern for an issue in your own words,
speaking from your heart. Keep it to one subject at a time. At the
beginning of the letter state clearly what your subject is and
your position on it. After that, describe how the issue affects
you. Then ask them to help you on the issue. Make sure you type or
write your name and complete address clearly so that they know
where to send a response.
Letters are respected by lawmakers because an individual
person has taken the time to write them.
Telephoning
There is no guarantee that phone calls will get nearly
the same time and attention from a
lawmaker's staff as a simple letter. If you
do
decide to call your lawmaker, especially your representative or
senator, then ask to speak to the legislative assistant ("L.A.")
handling the issue you are calling about.
If the
staff person is not there, ask for his or her name, leave a voice
mail, and keep calling until they take your call or return your
call.
E-mail
E-mail is not yet a sure way of communication with all
lawmakers. Some offices reply and some do not. The trend, however,
is for offices to reply to all e-mails with a general
acknowledgment e-mail and then follow that up with a traditional
letter response if the e-mail author lives in the lawmaker's
jurisdiction and provided his or her
postal address in the e-mail.
Be Respectful
No matter how mad you are about an issue or at a
lawmaker, always try to communicate in a civil tone and use
respectful language. If you are mad, by all means tell them, but
do not use them as a
punching bag for your words. You want them to
be sympathetic to your words, not turned off.
Where to phone and write
There are only two addresses and one phone number you need
to write or to call your lawmakers
in
Washington, D.C.
Telephone number for Congress:
202-224-3121
(This is the Capitol switchboard operator who can transfer your
call to any representative or senator's office)
You only need to know these two addresses to
send a letter to your representative or senators
no matter who they are!
For every Senator:
The Honorable (Senator's full name here)
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
For House of Representatives member:
The Honorable (Representative's full name)
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Take the time to get involved. Your
opinion really counts!
(editorial
courtesy of Momanson)
Copyright 2004-2008 Momanson Co.
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