Joan on Government

TIPS FOR WRITING TO YOU LEGISLATORS

When writing to your local legislators, please keep in mind the following tips:

1.KEEP IT SHORT.

This is a good tip because during the legislative sessions in particular, the legislators receive quite a lot of correspondence in the form of regular mail, e-mail, and phone calls from many people. If you can keep your contact as short as possible, it is much more likely to receive attention more promptly than if you send something that is to long; otherwise it could end up getting set aside until they might have more time to look it over which will only delay a response.

2.GIVE YOUR NAME, ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER (if willing).

Here again, the legislators get so much correspondence that they need to know this information in order to judge how quickly they should respond to you. While that may sound bad, if you stop and think about it; if you are writing to a person who represents YOU, and someone else from another district or even another state has written at the same time, who do you want them to give priority to? Yourself of course! By letting them know that you live in their district and where, they are also better able to know what the particular problems are in your area to be better able to help you.

They may also know whether there would be someone in your area who may also be able to help you with your problem or question. If sending e-mail, they have no way of knowing who they may be writing back to, and may decide not to answer at all if the name and address information is not provided! It also lets them know that you are serious about wanting a reply. Nothing bad will happen if they know who you are!!!

3.BE COURTEOUS!

You can express your opinions without having to use profanity or threats like, "If you don't vote this way, I'll never vote for you again!" While that kind of statement DOES show that they issue may be important to you, you have just told this person that you are so angry that you may not be much of a supporter anyway, so why should they listen to you! It is far better to be able to simply write your most persuasive statements on why a certain issue is important to you or why you are either for/against a certain issue than anything else you could say. A good debate will work much better than a threat any day!

4.SAY THANK YOU!

What??? You disagree with these people and now I suggest that you thank them? Yep, it works wonders! Would you rather listen to someone who is willing to thank you for your time and realizes that your time is as valuable to you as theirs is to them, or someone who just doesn't care?

It's also good to thank them once in a while if you hear that they voted the way that you thought they should on any particular issue. It always helps to let them know whether you think they are doing a good job -- or not. Mostly, they only hear the "or not"! It's a thankless job! Let's thank them once in a while!

5.BE PATIENT!

For the most part, they cannot possibly respond to you as quickly as you may want them to. Our legislators can have as many as 500 or more e-mails alone to answer on any given day. Can you imagine having to try to answer that amount of e-mail alone! Plus there are the phone calls and regular mail to deal with as well, plus visitors that may stop in, plus trying to keep on top of legislation introduced by others, as well as trying to do the work of representing their own districts by drafting legislation and such on our behalf. There is much more to the jobs that these people are doing for us than most of us realize!

On an added note, people may also not realize that in the House of Representatives at least, there is only ONE legislative assistant for every THREE Representatives in the minority party, and ONE for EACH Representative in the majority party! This disparity in assistance also adds to the problem for minority party Representatives in their ability to get back to you as quickly as you may want them to. Just something to keep in mind -- whichever party is in control!

-- Joan