Do I have a Congressman?

Factual Questions
1

I am a US citizen living in Canada. I am allowed to register to vote based on my last US address, in California. My question is whether the senators and US Representative then actually represent me. If I needed to contact my congressman, would he / she be happy to help or say, “sorry, not my jurisdiction”? If the latter case, is there an equivalent?

For example, let’s say I’m having difficulty with some bureaucratic issue regarding my student loans or the IRS—a personal red-tape issue where the intervention of a Congressperson’s office is useful. Would I go to the local US Consulate?

Sorry if the questions are stupid, but we didn’t cover ex-pats in civics class.

2

Assuming you mean you can vote in the Congressional elections and not just the Presidential election, then yes I’d assume whoever is the Representative for the district in which your last address was located is your Congressman. I’d include that information in your letter.

Since you can vote for or against him, he’d have as much reason to help you as any other of his constituents.

3

Yes, as a matter of retail politics, if you can vote for or against him, I’d assume he wouldn’t worry too much about where you live.

4

Thanks, this is interesting. Just to check, I went to the online write-your-represenative site, and put in a relative’s address. The form states: “Please fill out this online form to send me an email. Regrettably, I am unable to reply to any email from constituents outside of the (X)th District of California.” I suppose that depends on how you parse “from”—I come from that District, I just don’t send email from there.

5

Next time you’re down there, what about getting a P.O. Box in your own name, in the district?

6

you want to know if they “actually represent me”. Of course not, they represent themselves and whoever gives them the most money.

7

Here is what California’s voter registration office says about overseas voters.

8

I read that, but it doesn’t really answer the question. That’s about how to vote, not whether congressional representatives acknowledge the expatriates who vote for them.

I’m more concerned about the hypothetical than the practical, mostly because I want to know if I can whine about “taxation without representation” or if, as a former CA resident, I do in fact have representation.

I suppose I could write my congressman and ask. Heh.

9

That looks like a very sloppy way of saying that he will only reply to his own constituents and not people from other parts of the country. I would hope that if I am on vacation and am kidnapped by terrorists that my Congressman wouldn’t say, “Sorry, pal, you are outside of my Congressional District now. Go pound sand.”

10

You’ll get a faster response if you just call. One of his aides will be able to quickly tell you the answer.

11

Well, of course not. He’ll have a staffer do it. :smiley:

12

Don’t bother with your Congress-critter. Go straight to Dianne Feinstein. Her office is on the ball and will answer all of your questions.

13

Right now there’s no specific issue. By the time one comes up, Dianne Feinstein may have retired, who knows? I just want to know the answer.

I wrote the representative. The form doesn’t require you identify where you’re writing from, but it requires entering a valid street address within his district. If you don’t have one and aren’t clever enough to find one, the email won’t be sent. I used a relative’s address. Good thing the system isn’t smart: my ISP is clearly foreign. If I get a reply, I’ll post it.

14

You could also call the US embassy in your location and ask them.

15

As others have said using different words, a website tool to screen out spam from a congressman’s office email account is not a reflection of either their ability or interest in serving you. There’s about 650,000 people in the average congressional district, and it is almost certain that at least a handful of those people are going to be overseas or out of state for short or long periods of time, while still having the ability to vote in that district.

So why does the email tool require an address if there’s some constituents who would be excluded from sending inquiries? Because there’s also millions of other non-constituents who might take the opportunity to clutter up the email account. If you were to call, fax, or snail-mail something to your congressman with a brief explanation of your residence, I would bet that they would help you just like any other constituent residing in their district. I’m not aware of any Federal law that precisely defines the relationship between an overseas voter and their representative, but I’d bet anything that most representatives would value the word “voter” more than they devalue the word “overseas.”

16

[Moderator Note]

rsat3acr, this is General Questions. Let’s stick to informative responses here and refrain from opinionating. No warning issued.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

17

Well, it turns out everybody was correct in their assumptions: I got a reply to my query today.

“Yes, you would contact our office if you needed help with a federal agency.”

Thanks to everyone who participated in the thread.

18

I vote in Illinois, although I have been living in Montreal for well over 40 years. If I wanted to write my congressidiot, I would just give him/her the same address I give when I apply for an absentee ballot, even though I haven’t lived there for a while. (I did actually know the name of one of my senators, until he resigned nearly four years ago.)