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Make Your Points |
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- Letters to Legislators. Are you a big fan of mass mailings? No? Not surprisingly, your policymakers don’t care very much for them (or about them), either.
Writing your own letter or email, in your own words, means more than all the form letters you can sign.
Address your communication carefully. Include contact information.
Make one or two main points, and highlight them in bold. Keep the letter to one page.
Mention the specific action or outcome you would like to see as a result of your communication. Explain your plan to follow up (call, email, personal meeting, forwarding the letter to the editor of your local paper, posting it on a blog, etc.).
Write to YOUR legislator – someone for whom you can vote (office staff might check whether you are a constituent).
Legislators get lots of letters from not-very-happy people. Civil, well-informed letters with facts that can be double-checked have a better chance of standing out.
- Receiving responses and following up. Will those same policymakers who don’t like mass mailings send YOU a mass mailing, in response to your carefully personalized letter? Yep. Most likely.
Did they actually send you a clear answer to your question? If not, try again. Mention their less than satisfactory response (politely). Repeat as needed.
It takes more than one letter to build a relationship. You can also call and talk to someone in the office. Get a name and direct line. Call back every once in while to check in.
If you call, have your main points and facts in front of you. Make sure you are talking to the right person in the office before you launch into your points.
When you do launch, keep it short. Legislative staff will remember the organized person more fondly than they will the person who rambled on.
Tell them who you are, where you are from, and how to understand you as a voter (“I’m a veteran, a senior citizen, a former teacher, a grandparent, and right now I volunteer at such and such. I care very much about this and that, and I represent whosiwhatsis organization. Do you have a minute to talk, please?”
Get their contact information and send written follow-up.
- Letters to Editors. Odds are that you read letters to the editor in your local paper every day.
You know the usual suspects who always write in, you know the tones of voices, you know the local issues. Figure out where you fit in. Are you saying anything new?
The letters that stick with you and make you think are short, look at both sides of an issue, weigh them according to a clearly stated set of values, and come to a reasoned conclusion that supports a specific action. |
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