I recently saw a few websites advocating writing letters to congressmen and senators, and this idea struck me as completely idiotic, considering the current mail situation. As far as I know, nobody on Capitol Hill is not taking any mail, it’s stacking up in a warehouse waiting for the FBI to go through it.
So what should a constituent do when he wants to contact his elected representatives and make his opinion heard? Email is useless, the websites that advocate letter writing say that email is universally ignored. So what is left? Can I call Western Union and have them hand-deliver a telegram? Does WU even offer telegram services anymore? The last time I sent a telegram was in 1969, I even paid extra for nighttime delivery but they just phoned up the recipient and read it to him over the phone, no hardcopy.
Can you still send a telgeram?
You can, SDStaff says:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mtelegram.html
Who told you e-mail is ignored? As far as I know, it’s required of them to print out emails and submit them to the senator or congressman. I sent in 2 that way and I got a pretty timely reply.
Note: The reply was snail mail.
Hmm… didn’t think to check the SD archives. I wonder if congress is opening Airborne and FedEx packages? Somehow I doubt it.
I’ll second this. I have sent my Congressman several emails. In every case I’ve received a snail-mail response which indicated they’d actually read my mail. That is, someone responded thoughtfully about the points I’d raised and provided a summary of the Congressman’s position on the issue. Your Congressman may ignore his email, but that’s not a universal situation.
What they tend to ignore (as explained to me by our union lobbyist) is mass mailings, where everybody signs and snailmails/emails the same letter. The letter itself may be paid attention to, but not the particular copy from you.
The lobbyist said they love to hear from individual private citizens; that two or three well-written, personal communications from constituents is worth much more than a dozen different mass mailings.
So I’d still go ahead and mail a letter to my congressman. I’d just be prepared to wait a bit longer for a reply, while his aides go through his mail in biohazard suits.
Well, since I’m a Canadian this doesn’t directly answer your question but it’s close.
I had a concern (actually, I was pissed off about a stupid fucking law) and wrote my MP if I could get a permit to import something that is now illegal… but can still be purchased for certain circumstances. He agreed that it was an idiotic law and would check into it for me. He wrote me 3 letters and said he spoke to the Justice Minister twice. I have no reason to believe that he is lying to me. His office even went so far as phoning me once at home (during the daytime while I was at my office) and left a message saying that he hasn’t forgotten about my request and would get back to me ASAP, which they did.
So… IMHO…
Will it actually acomplish anything? Who knows.
Will he/she even look at your request? A definte maybe. He did in my case, at least.
You can always call them up yourself. If you go to http://www.info.gov you can get the phone numbers & addresses (snail & email) for your representatives & senators. I have only spoken with aides, but that’s who would be reading the mail anyways so I think it’s probably as effective.
I have a really good story about writing your congressman.
My Grandfather was in the navy and was buried at Arlington. It was a small service without the gun salutes. Down the way from our funeral was a more lavish funeral. With the guns and horse drawn carriage etc. Later in the year my sister had a school assignment to write a letter to our congressman about an issue they felt strongly about. She must have been in the 8th grade at that time. She wrote to complain that our grandfather with his distinguished service in WWII etc. received such a small funeral. The Congressman had somebody track down what happened. This caused a big to do and somebody at Arlington had to look into the matter. My Uncle and Mother were called by Arlington staff to find out what was wrong. The answer turned out to be that my Uncle who handled setting things up requested a small funeral because it was my grandfathers wishes. My sister got some action by writing to her congressman.
I work on Capitol Hill… nothing is getting into the Senate or House offices. No couriers, no FedEX and certainly no USPS mail. You could try faxing, most Congressmen or Senators have their fax numbers on their website or if you have on handy, a Congressional Yellow Book will give you all the numbers you ever could want.
They’re not taking any kind of mail at all right now, but when that logjam gets cleared, and they’re starting to deilver mail again, you could try a postcard. Resumption of physical mail delivery will no doubt include careful screening, and a postcard is about as safe as you can get. Nothing to open, no way to hide anything, gets passed through faster than other parcels requiring extra work.
Of course, everyone who handles it will be able to see just by looking at the back that you want federal money to study the Tinfoil Hat Effect, so it’s not a perfect solution… 