Contacting Congress Update

On February 21st, I started a new hobby of calling my congress members at least once per week. The goal in starting this hobby was to 1. be active and consistent in my resistance to the current collapse of our country, 2. invite people to join in on this activity to hopefully bring in folks who wouldn’t normally call, and 3. find a nice outlet to vent my frustrations with the current state of affairs at the people actually responsible for it.

Some pressing issues for the month are: the continued illegal blockade of Gaza, the Living Wage for Musicians Act, and the attempted gerrymandering of district maps in Texas. I’ll include a brief discussion of these issues in this post. If you’ve been keeping up with these posts, feel free to skip down to the “What To Say” prompt section.

The most impactful form of communication is of course, face-to-face. If you happen to find yourself in a position where you can physically go to town halls and local offices, that would be the way to go. However, I realize that having the time (or bandwidth) to do that is a luxury that few people have. The least impactful form is emailing and signing online petitions. While easy to do, they are almost always ignored. I’ve tried emailing before quite a few times, only to receive a boilerplate response each time - overall it’s a waste of time. So the perfect middle ground of time-efficient and impactful, is calling them. I know many folks have anxiety about calling, especially calling people they don’t know, I understand that. It can help a lot to know what you can expect on the other end, and to have something basic ready to say. Those two things are exactly what I hope to provide you with in this post. After getting that first call done, I promise, it will seem much less daunting.

If you’d like to review how to join in on this initiative of one call per week, or would like to continue the mission, I’ve included the updated guide and prompt for contacting below.
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Contacting Members of the House:

You can find who your representative is through this link:
(https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative). Simply click the link and type in your ZIP code, you’ll then be prompted to put in your address if there are multiple representatives associated with your ZIP.

Once you’ve found their name, you can find their number on the list linked here:
(https://www.house.gov/representatives).
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Contacting Senators:

You can find your senators and their contact information through this link:
(https://www.senate.gov/states/statesmap.htm). Click on your state on the map and their number should be right under their portrait. You can also find other useful info about them here as well. For example, I’ve been including the little “Hometown” fact as an extra way to make things more personal.
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What To Say:

There is a high likelihood that you won’t end up having anyone answer when you call. In calling more than once per week since my last post on this (February 21st), I’ve received a grand total of 5 responses while calling. Interestingly, my Republican senator: Dave McCormick, had his inbox full twice since my last post… tsk tsk. When leaving a message inevitably happens, you will be prompted with exactly what they want you to include. This will usually be: Your name, contact information, and your ZIP code. They may also ask for an address, although this is usually left as an optional option. The most important of these is your ZIP code.

After stating the above info, list off just a couple pressing concerns. If it’s easier to focus on a single issue per call, that can sometimes be more effective. I’ve included an updated version of an example prompt in the above image but I’ll detail it below:

“My name is [insert name, email/number, ZIP code]. I’m calling to express my concern over recent policy proposals and executive actions. 1. Vote “yes” on the resolution “Calling for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to address the needs of civilians in Gaza”. Children are starving. By doing nothing, you are complicit in their suffering. 2. Vote “yes” on the Living Wage for Musicians Act. Musicians deserve fair compensation for the immense value they contribute to streaming services. 3. Condemn and oppose the proposed gerrymandering of districts in Texas. This new map considers race as a determining parameter, which is illegal. Thank you for your time.”

It can really be that short! It’s nice to include something personal in the message: if you voted for them, what your occupation is, how these policies impact you and the people you love, are all great ways of doing that. The goal is to just let these representatives know that these are issues you care about and will vote for. It made you get up and call didn’t it?

1. About the Senate Resolution: The borders to Gaza have been blocked since March 2nd of 2025. This means that no food, medicine, or any other humanitarian supplies have been permitted to enter the area. Children are starving to death. This brings the situation no closer to peace, no closer to the release of any hostages–in fact those held hostage are also suffering from the same lack of supplies. Inaction on this issue is tantamount to complicity in the ongoing genocide. You can read the full Senate Resolution here.

The fact that the United States is currently supporting the continuation of this atrocity is disgusting. Legislation takes time that many people on the ground do not have. If you’d like to support people on the ground, the PCRF (Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund) is a great organization to do that with. Consider making a donation here. If your budget is tight, I understand, please let your call in support of this resolution be your way of contributing.
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2. About The Living Wage for Musicians Act: This bill, spearheaded by Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman finally takes steps to address the long-standing predation of Spotify on the artists that make their entire business feasible. It establishes an “Artist Compensation Royalty Fund” which would operate similarly to a PRO (a non-profit that collects royalties and pays them out to artists) which would collect a new subscription fee and 10% levy on non-subscription revenue and then pay it out to artists. Essentially it builds an entirely new revenue stream (plus that 10% levy) to ensure that artists receive compensation. You can read the full bill here, or there’s also a more concise and clear version you can read here.

One of the coolest aspects is that these royalties would not only go to the main featured musician on the track, but also to any other musicians involved. If you’re a backup vocalist, a drummer, a bass player, or a cellist, that’s you! An extra bonus is that this extra money goes directly to the musicians, skipping over any label or management.

I personally still think there is more work to be done in improving streaming royalty distribution (you can read my breakdown on how that works here-it's actually gotten worse since I wrote this. I'll do an updated breakdown as soon as I get the chance!). However, this act seems like the best path the government can take to at least somewhat mitigate the damage the current system is causing. It's an important step in the right direction. 

One particular section stands out to me as one of the most important aspects: “the Living Wage for Musicians act includes a maximum payout per track, per month, in order to generate a more sustainable income for a broader and more diverse set of artists. Money exceeding this cap (as it stands, 1,000,000 streams for a track in a month) will be used to increase the payout per stream for all recording musicians. This will help us achieve our goals of helping musicians in every genre, across the US, have a more sustainable career.” It creates a more stable environment for people to get started in the arts when they don’t necessarily have a safety net to protect them. More money to the people who need it.

3. About the Texas Gerrymandering: Trump has recently called on his Republican lap dogs to go “find” him some more seats in preparation for the upcoming midterms. They’ve gotten right to work redrawing districts in Texas to weaken democratic support. This article offers good coverage of exactly what these proposed districts look like (some real geometric feats going on!)

If this new map is approved, Texas will sink further into Republican (really Trumpian) entrenchment. As it is, the districts aren’t representative of the population. This only makes the problem worse. We need our representatives to condemn this blatant attempt to subvert an already decrepit democracy.

Why Call?

One of the most important aspects of this process is consistency. Calling once helps, but if you can do it regularly, these calls will start to pile up and make a difference. If you can pick an easily achievable regular goal amount of calls, you’ll be more likely to do it. I personally have set a goal to call representatives at a minimum of once per week. I can absolutely do more than that, but even if I get busy, I must at least do it once per week. Feel free to join me on that goal! In support of it, I’ll be including regular updates on policies and the written prompt I’ll be using in the calls. Stay tuned for those! If everyone reading were to make a plan to call, no matter how frequently, this could really start to make a difference. Calling is better than not calling, so pick whatever frequency works for you.

I want to work on a way to streamline and communicate the process of contacting local representatives as well. This is truly the most impactful thing you can do. Your local representatives are the ones to implement policy on the ground level, and you can have a more meaningful impact on local policy by talking to them. The main roadblock is that the process of doing this is often different from county to county. As a result, this topic is trickier to communicate in a concise blog, but I promise, I’ll be working on a way!

Things are scary, and it’s easy to tune it all out and feel helpless. This is one small way to take back control. The folks in congress and in the white house work for us, it’s time we reminded them that. In the meantime - between the calls - thank you for reading, and happy jamming!