Knowing How to Ask

Members of Congress and their staff need you to tell them how you feel about particular issues. But you have to be sure to deliver you message in the right way. Otherwise, your communication will be lost in the flood of mail, e-mail, phone calls, and faxes that come in to a Congressional office everyday. Following are some tips and techniques that will help ensure that your voice is heard above the fray.

Method of Communication

The methods of communication you chose should depend on the type of message. A simple request to vote for a particular bill can easily be relayed over the phone, while a more complicated message might better be put in writing. Think also about what works best for you in terms of time, energy, personal preference, and money.

Volume Does Not Necessarily Equal Effectiveness

Highly controversial issues can result in a flood of communications to a congressional office. Many offices consider the numbers when making a decision, but only to a point. Sometimes ten thoughtful and well-argued letters can have an equal impact to that of hundreds of calls or postcards.

Always Identify Yourself

It is a waste of time to communicate with your Congressional office without identifying yourself. Unidentified information will generally be ignored and thrown away. Because the main duty of a Congressional office is to represent the people who live in the Congressional district, they need to know who is trying to communicate with them.

Be Specific

If you are interested in a particular piece of legislation, ask your representatives to co-sponsor. If your concern is with a federal agency action, ask him or her to send a letter. Whatever it is, the best way to ensure that the office pays attention to your issue is to ask for something specific.

Prioritize Your Requests

If you ask for too many things without making it clear what your top priorities are, the Congressional office may feel overwhelmed. Let the office know what actions need the most attention or time your requests so that you are not asking for more than a few things at once.  

Offer To Be a Resource

Congressional staff deal with countless complex issues. Knowing that there's someone in the district who really understands these issue can be very useful to staff. If you are an expert in your field, let your Congressional office know that you can answer any questions they may have.

Be Polite

Treat the staff and the office with the same respect you expect. If you are disagreeable, it will make the staff far less likely to want to work with you in the future. You can be forceful about your views and opinions without being rude.

Always Tell the Truth

Congressional staff turn to outside individuals for advice and assistance on important policy issues all the time. They must feel that they can trust the individuals with whom they are dealing. If you don't know the answer to a question, tell them that and let them know you will get back to them.

Do Not Vilify Your Opponents

At the very least, you should refrain from labeling those who disagree with you as unenlightened idiots. In fact, you can go even further by fairly presenting the other side's argument and then explaining why you have the stronger counter-argument. It is a great way to build credibility, especially since the staff person you are dealing with most likely will hear from the other side. He or she will realize that you have developed your position based on a careful evaluation of the facts.  

Do Not Talk About the Campaign with Staff

Many Congressional staff get very nervous or even offended when people they are meeting with mention the member's campaign. The laws against staff involvement in their member's campaign are very strict. In particular, any suggestion that the staff person's help on a legislative issue may translate into a campaign contribution is strictly forbidden. Such a suggestion may, in fact, make a staff person avoid helping you because they are worried it would look bad for their boss.

Persistence Pays

Perhaps the most important thing to remember in dealing with Members of Congress and their staff's is that persistence pays. In many cases, you may have to ask more than once before your Congressional office is able to respond to your request.

Effective Meetings 

In order to have an effective meeting, you must consider the context. Elected officials and their staff often have meetings all day long on a variety of topics. One minute it may be landscape architects, the next minute it may be people concerned about free trade, and then people with health insurance questions. Jumping from subject to subject can be somewhat confusing and rather chaotic for elected officials. Your job is to bring order to chaos by following these few simple steps.

• Be cognizant of your representative's time limitations. Don't ask for more than one or two meetings per year. Sometimes your message is best delivered by phone or through a staff person.
• Decide where you want to meet (DC vs. the home office), after looking at the congressional calendar (see the House and Senate websites for links to the House and Senate calendars)
• Decide who should deliver your message. Some members may respond better to powerful figures in the community who support you. A constituent is always best.
• Limit the number of people you bring to the meeting. Most Congressional offices cannot fit more than five people.
• About one month before the proposed meeting time, fax the scheduler a meeting request, including a brief description of what you want to discuss and the names of the attendees. Meeting requests must always be made in writing, as the scheduler will have to pass the request along to several people before a decision is made.
• Send a "one-pager" about your program before the meeting, nothing more. Most staff and Members do not review materials before meetings - they expect YOU to brief them. 
• Be very flexible - your meeting may take place standing up in the hallway, on the run to a vote, or may be cancelled with no warning. Members have to deal with sudden and dramatic shifts in their schedules on a daily basis. Unfortunately, this can affect the people with whom they are planning to meet.
• Make sure you know "who's who" in the meeting, and take down the names of any staff people you may need to deal with in the future. 
• Leave behind short, concise, and consistent information. 
• Follow up after the meeting on any request you made and information you promised to provide. 

Effective Letters and Phone Calls

The key to being effective in your written communications is ensuring that someone on staff actually thinks about what you have to say. This means taking a personal, thoughtful approach, explaining why you're relevant to the office, reaching the right person and, perhaps more important, asking for a response.

The Personal Approach

The most compelling and effective letters and phone calls combine a thoughtful approach to policy issues with a careful explanation of why it's important to you and the Member's community. In most offices, it is these letters or phone messages that the elected official actually sees, not the letters or messages generated by mass postcard, form letter, or call-in campaigns.

Why Are You Relevant?

You are relevant to the Congressional office because you are a constituent, and you can demonstrate that connection by including your postal address on every correspondence and as part of every discussion, whether it's e-mail, fax, or traditional letter.

Ask for a Response

Given the limited time and budgets in Congressional offices, priority will always be given to letters and inquiries that require an answer. Asking for a response means someone on the staff has to think about what you've said and, in some way, address your concerns or comments.

Reaching the Right Person

Correspondence requesting a meeting or site visit should be sent to the Executive Assistant or Scheduler. Educational and informational correspondence about your work or a particular project should be sent to both the member and legislative assistant assigned to your issue. You can find out who the appropriate staff person is by calling the office at (202) 225-3731.

Do You Need a Phone Appointment?

If you want to have a substantive discussion about a particular program or policy issues, you should ask for the staff person who handles that issue and see if you can set up a phone appointment. That way, you can be sure that they have set aside time to talk with you, as opposed to catching them in the middle of a busy day.