Is this something unique for the US? I never heard of anyone calling or writing their political representatives in my country (Norway), unless they were already politically aktive in some way.
Varies by country.
This from an Australian.
In the US congress critters are very aware of local support. Doing useful things for constituents is a given, within the bounds of reasonableness. Often this can simply be a matter of helping direct matters to the appropriate civil servants. But by adding a bit of weight they may improve matters.
Actually affecting policy or legislation, getting in contact matters as well. Elected members take seriously any matters raised simply as a proxy for the mood of the electorate.
As an outsider I suspect a significant aspect of how big local politics is for US confess critters is that voters can vote both for their local representative and the president. So they can vote based on their political leanings for president, and vote for the person who delivers locally, even if they are from the opposite side. Parish pump politics is big, and incumbent representatives are usually at pains to get the word out about what federal money they have brought in. You only need to look at the NASA’s Artemis program to see how important this is.
For those of us in smaller countries, and also those without a seperate presidential election, it seems that voters just focus on the party, rather than the local member. Here in Oz that is very true. However local members still maintain a significant staff in their electorate, and spend a lot of time in their electorate addressing local’s issues. Again more a matter of helping constituents cope with stuff.
Many Australians cannot name their local member of parliament. But they will still turn to them for help. But directly complaining about laws or policy is much less a thing.
In the US the executive is not made up from elected members. Whereas in many other countries it is. The Westminster system appoints ministers from the parliament. I suspect this has some influence on how elected members see their role, and how their constituency views them.
Canadian here, and what @Francis_Vaughan said is right on the money. I’m far from a frequent writer, but our MPP and MP (provincial and federal, respectively) are good conduits for expressing likes and dislikes in policy opinions. They (or the staffers) can act as a resource in the case of bureaucracy gone wrong - missing passport application, delays in paperwork processing, etc.
I will add some refinement to this.
In the US, it also depends on what state and who your representatives are in the local and national legislatures.
I live in a rather conservative state(texas ain’t nothing but a pimple), my local and national congress … persons… are, by my experience, useless. I have attempted to contact them(well their staff) and been rewarded with nothing but junk mail asking for money, spam robocalls asking for money and spam email asking for money all while extolling their virtues and how awesome they are for me and mine. They don’t as far as I can tell, give a crap about the majority of their constituents. Just the money. Things may be different in more liberal areas.
There are certain activities for which contacting your congressperson is required, e.g. getting a White House tour or applying to a service academy. Granted, those are very specific instances, but still.
I had a huge problem with the IRS. They were trying to screw me over one more time so I called my congressman’s office. I don’t know for sure, but someone there may have tipped off the IRS official who did step in and got things settled. Or not, but they did get back to me to find out if I needed more help. The representatives are the best means of communication with the federal government outside standard channels. Even in my little state where we have the same number of reps and senators nobody would believe a senator was at all concerned with individual non-rich citizens or competent enough to help.
Federal and state legislators will vary widely in terms of how much effort they dedicate to constituent services. But in my experience, this isn’t a “liberal” versus “conservative” issue, but rather that legislators in swing districts are more likely to prioritize constituent relations over those that are deeply in either the red or the blue.
That’s because swing district representatives have to fight for their political survival every election and getting a reputation for ignoring your constituents could make the difference between a +1% win or a -1% loss. Whereas those in “gimme” districts can afford to be lazier or at least more focused on primary voters.
Depends. I’ve always had great success getting my Senators to respond, but my Representative has always been an asshole. We finally drove the old Rep. into retirement a few years ago, and the new one seems to be a bit more responsive from what I hear.
For informations sake I’ll note that both my Senators are Democrats. My Rep…isn’t.
Generally it’s not the representative or senator who responds. These people have bigger things to do. But they have staff in their offices whose job it is to deal with constituent services, and those people can sometimes be helpful, as officials will frequently be more responsive to a congressperson’s staffer than to a random citizen.
I used the services of someone in my congressman’s office when I needed a passport processed for my daughter (there has been a huge backlog of passports ever since covid). We also reached out to a staffer for another congressman who does not represent us, but who has been helpful to people outside her boss’ district. (One way or another, we got the passport in the nick of time.)
My congressman is facing a primary election next week (from some Trumpist challengers). I would support the guy anyway, but am much more motivated to go out and actually vote since I have appreciation for his staff’s efforts on our behalf.
I think that’s probably a big part of it. The current (and previous) mayor of the city I’m in has always been very accessible and approachable. I probably see him 2 or 3 times a week when he stops in for lunch, and based on his facebook posts, he’s consistently at local businesses/stores/bars. If you have a question for him, he’ll happily talk to you about it and if he’s able, get it fixed for you.
During the first year or so of the PPP/EIDL programs, the IRS and SBA is really slow, really backed up and just plain did things wrong sometimes. It resulted in a lot of people waiting months upon months upon months to get their loans. A lot of people had good luck calling their state-level reps, who apparently had connections within the IRS and SBA and suddenly things would start moving again. IIRC, once they step in, your application would be tagged as having a ‘congressional inquiry’ and was expedited through the system.
Having said that, I’m sure a lot of politicians don’t work like that and calling them isn’t going to do much more than give you 30 seconds to yell at their voicemail system.
It’s kinda funny that they’re almost setting you up to say ‘you didn’t help me when I needed it, why would I make a donation to your campaign, or even vote for you?’
The OP says political representative so I take that to also include city, county, and state reps.
I am in constant contact with my state assembly rep and state senator. I have sat down with them many times to help write bills. They are very good at working with and staying in touch with their constituents and getting things done.
My city alderman on the other hand is another story. He does call you back and listens to you, but then does nothing. He’s as useless as tits on a bull. And the prick has never met a tax or a fee he didn’t like.
In Norway, how is the elected representative expected to represent the views of his electorate (at least on some new matter not covered in his election manifesto) if the electorate doesn’t make those views known to him?
Constituency casework is a major part of a British MP’s work, except perhaps for a few lazybones who sit for a seat Mr Bean would win if he wore the right party label (increasingly few).
Of course, a lot of it would be dealt with by assistants and/or ought to be dealt with by the local councillors or the relevant member of a devolved assembly. But the overall pattern of messages, and conversations at their regular “surgeries”, would give the MP a handle on both opinions among their constituents and any frequent bureaucratic problems that would help them hold the government to account, or of course give them a stick to beat a local/devolved authority controlled by the Other Lot.
(I get the impression your Congress is more concerned with legislation than scrutinising government administration - or is it that they do the latter by micro-managing through legislation?)
In the U.S., teenagers have found it difficult to get assistance from elected representatives.
Well I called my congressman and he said quote
“I’d like to help you son, but you’re too young to vote”
- Eddie Cochran
Yes, contacting your member of parliament or the Legislature is the way to joggle the bureaucracy in Canada. I know that a lot of MP’s spend their spare time listening to constituents and addressing their problems, if they want to be re-elected. One local MP I know of lives in a high-immigrant neighbourhood and spends almost every weekend talking to constituents trying to sort out their relatives’ immigration issues. Constituent concerns are probably the main task of some of their office staff.
This is why I think the local representative model is far far better than proportional representation. In the latter case, the MP would be more concerned with sucking up to the party brass who write the priority order list for who gets to be a sitting member for their party. With a one-per-constituency member, they are well aware that their position is determined by what a small group of constituents think of them.
Plus, Canada has donation and spending limits for local campaigns, so they don’t turn into those over-priced contests we hear about in some US districts. And size matters. I see that - to pick a random district - AOC’s district in NYC has over 200,000 votes in a population of 700,000. Most Canadian parliamentary seats are around 50,000 votes or less. (To pick a random one, Reybold-Wilson (IND) in 2019 won when there were 53,000 votes cast in Granville, with a population of 100,000 of which 82,000 are eligible voters. Note the Canadian turnout tends to be in the area of 65%, and the parties don’t play games with trying to make it difficult to register or vote.
The response you get from those guys can run up and down the scale. I couldn’t image any town or state reps to be of any use at all without a personal connection or favors being given, and we have no real county governments. My next door neighbor has been on the town council for at least 5 years. They are completely useless but I get good treatment from the town inspectors when they realize where I live.
I had a problem getting my first two stimulus payments and was unable to get any response from the IRS as to why they weren’t being sent. Finally I resorted to requesting assistance from both of my Senators and my Representative. Neither of my Senators even deigned to respond to my request, but my Representative got me a response from the IRS within a few weeks.
An interesting use of the word, by the way. By extension from a doctor’s surgery, which is the U.K. term for what Americans call a doctor’s office. (It also means what a surgeon does in both countries.)
Surgery (politics) - Wikipedia
The extension to politics is apparently quite recent, OED says 1951.
A lot of “calling your congressman/senator/etc” has noting to do with politics but instead has to do with prodding bureaucrats on individual issues like passport renewal or school registration. I worked for both a municipal and state government , and calling your politician didn’t get him or her to call me and didn’t necessarily get you the response you wanted - but it did get someone in the politician’s office to call/write to someone high-up in my agency which meant it would get booted down to someone at my level. Who may or may not have given you the response you wanted - but they would have given you a response sooner than you were likely to get one without the politician intervening.
There are some “political” issues that cause people to contact politicians. Of course, there are letters/emails for or against some bill , but organized groups will also approach politicians about such things as getting speed bumps in front of a school, or changing an area’s zip code.
When my brother was in the Air Force, he was designated to go to Morocco. My mother got on the phone to Rep. Kathryn Granahan and got to talk to her personally, telling her, “You can’t send a Jew to Morocco.” She agreed and got him reassigned–albeit to western Alaska. Oh well, the fishing was good.
I just googled her and discovered she wasn’t even our congressman–she was from the district we had moved from when we decamped to suburban Philly. She was also in her last (of four) term.
Here in Canada, I have written once each to my MP and my MNA (provincial). I got an answer from the first, but no satisfaction. There was nothing he could do, actually. In the second case, I got a somewhat helpful, but basically unsatisfactory reply. It was of some use, but I still don’t have an assigned doctor, despite being on a waiting list for 19 months.