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. It can be surprisingly cathartic! 

Some pressing issues for the month are: the threat of public resources like Head Start, SNAP, and Medicaid being cut, Trump’s “big beautiful bill” which is currently being deliberated in congress, and the recent anti-protest actions being taken against protesters across the country. I’ll detail a discussion about the “big beautiful bill” down at the end of the prompt section, “What To Say”. If you’ve been keeping up with these posts, feel free to skip down to there.

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 2 responses while calling. When leaving a message inevitably happens, you will be prompted with exactly what they want you to include. This will usually include: 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. I’ve included an updated version what I’ve been using lately in the above image but I’ll detail it below:

“My name is [insert name, email, ZIP code]. I’m calling to express my concern over recent policy proposals and executive actions. 1. Vote no on Trump’s “big beautiful bill”. Items in this bill put your constituents' lives in jeopardy with major cuts to social programs, increases the national deficit, and further erosion of our country’s institutions. They crammed too many bad ideas to count in this bill. If you have any fondness in your heart for the constitution, vote no. Protect it. It's an easy win. 2. Do not allow Head Start and other public resources, including the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) to go unfunded. Your constituents depend on these resources to survive through these trying times. They will remember if you voted to take them away. 3. Trump’s recent actions against protesters are intentionally inflammatory. Sending the U.S. military to suppress their own citizen’s rights to organize and protest is absurd. Please take action to condemn this blatant power grab. Propose legislation to remove this tyrant from office. 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?
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A little additional information for this month: Trump’s “big beautiful bill” was crammed through the house last month. The bill has the potential for some devastating impacts to social programs–including new restrictions and limitations as to who is eligible to receive them. There’s a whole laundry list of issues, you can read more about the key ones here (bbc.com). However, there’s one specific section that I think is super important. Tucked away in this massive bill is yet another way to insulate the president from the powers of the judicial branch. “No court of the United States may enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c) whether issued prior to, on, or subsequent to the date of enactment of this section” (msnbc.com). 

This little paragraph would essentially allow the president to ignore court orders with impunity, and this would apply retroactively as well, undoing past court decisions–a devastating blow to our rights and protections. The stakes are super high, so I would make this issue a priority in your calls if you can. Yes, it passed in the house… because most of our representatives don’t actually do any work. It’s just been revised in the Senate and sent back to the House. You can find an article on recent changes to the bill here (npr.org). ​As you can imagine, it’s still just as terrible.  Now is the time for us to urge our representatives and senators to throw it out completely.
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Why Do This?

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!