Lone Star Democracy Builders Association

The Congressional Management Foundation, a nonprofit that provides management training and technical assistance to Congressional offices, has released the first of four reports on its study of electronic communication between constituents and their members of Congress.

What caught my eye (I'm mostly lifting from their text here):

• Half of congressional staff surveyed believe identical form communications are not sent with constituents’ knowledge or consent. [Note: As far as I could tell from the report, this seems to have spread from incidents in a few offices and turned into a general suspicion.]
• Nearly all staff surveyed (96%) reported that if their Member of Congress had not arrived at a firm decision, individualized postal letters would have at least some influence on the Member's decision, and 94% believed individualized e-mail messages would have at least some influence. 65% indicated that form postal letters have at least some influence; the analogous figure was 63% for form e-mail messages.
• Some Senate staff reported that their offices "do not count or respond to" some form communications – in essence, ignoring the messages altogether.

I had always assumed that letters sent through mass e-mail campaigns were at least being counted as a Yes or No on the topic. Maybe not so much, although the study warns that the data on that response might be a little shaky. Also, it looks better on the House side. But I still feel like I might have to put in a little more effort on the letter-writing front if I'm going to keep congratulating myself for having written at all.

Another thing I've always wondered about: my elected officials have already made up their minds about most of the issues they'll be voting on, which may or may not be good for me depending on which representative we're talking about. So do my communications have an impact? McCaul's office staff said (during the Social Security visit) that if he was going to take a position, he needed to have a binder full of letters from constituents that support that decision. So am I sending letters just in case?

• Focus group participants indicated that constituent communications were particularly helpful or influential early on in a decision-making process, when Members and staff are researching and developing policy positions.
• All postal mail to government agencies in Washington, D.C. undergoes a testing and decontamination process to protect employees from anthrax and other toxic substances. This delays postal mail by one week or more.

Although they want email early on and they want personalized communications, postal mail is a very slow way of getting information to the offices! ;) I'm a little unclear how I would efficiently get information about when the research phase is for particular decisions.

• However, despite these frustrations, congressional staff believe that the Internet and e-mail have provided some clear public benefits that are encouraging for our democracy. They view constituents as more informed, Members as more responsive, and citizens as more engaged in the public policy process as a result of Internet and e-mail.

So, keep trying.

This last bit reminded me very much of LGRL's last call-in campaign on the Talton amendment prohibiting gay/bisexual foster parents:

Members are sometimes subject to grassroots campaigns encouraging them to support legislation of which they are sponsors or co-sponsors. Other times, Members are scolded for supporting a position that they clearly state on their Web sites they do not support. In the eyes of Members and staff, this suggests that the grassroots organization generating the messages have misrepresented the Member's position to their constituents.

LGRL case simply instructed people to call everyone on the committee and say they were opposed to the amendment, without noting that Sen. Jane Nelson had already publicly taken a stand against the amendment, Naishtat would never support it, etc. One of the staffers I spoke with at an anti-amendment office begged me to tell people to stop calling, because they were being flooded. Talton was also on the committee list, and there were no special instructions on that call!

So I'll be interested to see the next few reports in this series and what additional recommendations are made for both Congressional offices and grassroots campaign folks. I'll keep y'all posted.

Posted by Skye at 10:25 PM in How To Communicate | Permalink

Check out the No Nonsense in November website. Forms are available for volunteers, donations, pledges to vote against the amendment, and e-mail alerts. Each page seems to have a button for e-mailing it to a friend. There's also downloadable materials for doing grassroots outreach.

Posted by Skye at 8:39 PM in Texas Organizations | Permalink

While folding laundry, I was watching the end of a presentation Senator Clinton was doing back on July 10th at the Aspen Ideas Summit on C-SPAN. A woman in the audience asked her about budget discipline, about what choices she would make to reduce government spending. Clinton didn't answer the question directly, but instead started talking about how her husband's policies provided a balanced budget and how rules in Congress under Democratic leadership prevented the introduction of new programs without a method to fund them included in the proposals. However, she then went on the attack, pointing out the lack of discipline and the major increases of spending under Bush, and then she ended with an interesting choice of rhetoric: the issues of the last few years have primarily been moral issues that have political effects, however, them more important problems that we need to face are political questions that have moral implications.

I really like the symmetry here, although I think the idea is a bit subtle for a non-political-junkie audience. She's referring to wedge issues the Republicans have used like same-sex unions and reproductive rights -- they have great evocative power with some audiences, but their resolution doesn't deal with the bigger economic and social issues of a society, ones that directly effect the way we all live our lives. She's trying to associate our own values with the economic questions of our day; tax cuts and spending decisions have a moral component, and as people who value communities, infrastructure, and opportunity, we should find a way to get people to balance what affects them immediately with what affects society in the medium-term and long-term.

Posted by Ben at 1:07 AM in Economy | Permalink

Donnie Fowler writes on the Huffington Post today about some of the progressive movements of the past that seemed radical and far outside the mainstream, yet somehow ended up become core parts of American society. Those include the American Revolution, abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, and the civil rights movement. He's using these examples to embolden those who will be fighting Bush's Supreme Court nominations, but I think they're useful as inspiration for all the various progressive causes that we support. Just because we're occasionally called crazy or radical doesn't mean that we are; it's likely that when we win our battles, society will come around and call us heroes and eventually forget that there was injustice. We just have to make sure we've got the drive and determination to win those battles.

Posted by Ben at 11:53 PM in Inspiration | Permalink

If you haven't seen a link to it yet, Senator Obama's commencement address is worth reading.

It's a little long. But it covers challenges America has faced in the past and how they were solved by working together. And it challenges America to rise up to meet today's challenges, with a vision to pull us all forward. A very good example of how to speak about progressive issues.

Nods to MLK Jr and Jesse Jackson Jr are duly noted.

Posted by GlennM at 11:07 AM in How To Communicate | Permalink

What's the matter with Kansas, by Thomas Frank, is just depressing.

It's a good history lesson of how the progressives in Kansas switched from fighting for economic prosperity for all to the current mess we're in. Namely, where Conservatives (Cons) do a bait-n-switch by getting folks riled up about "values" and then pass laws that take from the poor and give to the rich. Since the "values" issues are never resolved, the "values" folks can be riled up even more for the next election.

Kansas, where Frank grew up, is used as the case study. He goes over the fight between Moderates (Mods) and Cons over the Republican party. He finds folks that have mortgaged their houses so that they can keep fighting for "values", while becoming ever poorer.

He talks about the fact that if Democrats become the "new Republicans" economically (i.e. pro-business ala Bill C), the Republicans will trump us with the "values" issues. Folks just seem more interested in going all-out to "save a baby" instead of "providing choice".

It's a history lesson, not a path to get out of this mess. But some things to note:
* The Mods were able to win back the Republican party in some cases.
* Union folks vote economically instead of over "values". The problem is that union membership's at an all time low.
* The "latte-liberal" bashing is as much against the Republican Mods as it is against Democrats.

It's all about economics. There's got to be a way to wake folks up to the fact that their leaders keep pulling the bait-n-switch on them. While being respectful and not condescending.

I'm glad I read it. Besides chapters titles like "Russia Iran Disco Suck", it is good background on what we're up against. But damn, I now want to shoot off some fireworks to get this bile out of my mouth. And to keep thinking about how to sway folks that indeed just aren't logical. Or maybe logical, but just in very non-traditional ways (like the chapter on the Pope of Kansas). If nothing else Frank has done a great job of listening to the Conservatives.

Best quote (from p.109):

The angry workers, mighty in their numbers, are marching irresistably against the arrogant. They are shaking their fists at the sons of priviledge. ... They are massing at the gates of Mission Hills, hoisting the black flag, and while the millionaires tremble in their mansions, they are bellowing out their terrifying demands. "We are here," they scream, "to cut your taxes."

Posted by GlennM at 4:47 PM in Book Reviews & Who Are The Republicans? | Permalink | Comments (1)