I expect many here have written to their MP / Congresswoman / Senator / whoever over the years on various matters. Have you had any notable responses?
For my own experiences, I have two of note:
I once wrote to the Speaker of the House of Commons and former Tory MP, John Bercow on a matter within his purview and received a very snooty and dismissive response in return written by some flunky on some very expensive paper. In contrast, after the 2015 election I wrote to my former (Labour) MP, Dame Anne Begg, who had just been defeated to thank her for having been my MP and received a personal response from her, which I still have somewhere.
On the federal level, George McGovern actually wrote me a couple times (we exchanged a couple letters) after we had met in person. He and I differed on a lot of things but I had a lot of respect for him and his approaches to the problems we faced back then. There have been a couple others on the state and lower levels of government but they were people I came into contact with via flyfishing back in the day and not really about, or because of, politics.
I’ve got quite a collection and I’ve save quite a few that weren’t obvious form letters. Probably the most interesting one is a response from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. I wrote to him in the build up to the first Gulf War.
I wrote a letter to my MP (whom I had met when he campaigned door-to-door and got back a reply essentially saying what I was complaining about was a national security issue and beyond his competence. I wasn’t happy, but he did reply.
I hear from and converse with my state assembly rep all the time. He even sponsored and got passed some legislation I wrote (switchblade prohibition repeal). We’re currently working on getting another piece I wrote regarding a state pre-emption law pertaining to the sale of alcoholic beverages. We thought we had it wrapped up but some slug introduced an amendment that was unacceptable and my rep along with many others had to vote against the entire bill. Now we have to start all over again. :mad:
After receiving basically a big “fuck you” to my direct complaints to my local post office and several levels up from there, I wrote to my state representative and senators regarding my shitty postal service. An assistant responded personally, and I don’t know what, if anything, they actually did, but my postal service did significantly improve shortly after that (there was no formal follow-up).