I’m talking about all levels of government, from federal all the way down to local.

I want to be able find quick summaries of what bills (federal/state) are coming up for debate and being able to see how my representative voted on past bills and their rationale behind it.

A couple of follow up questions:

How much time do you spend researching and participating in government?

Do you have any luck contacting your representatives to get your opinion heard?

Basically, I want to be as informed as possible, while also getting my opinion heard from time to time,without it consuming my whole life.

21 comments

  3. I mostly don’t. Occasionally I’ll hear something on the news that irritates me, so I’ll look into it and see the arguments for and against.

    After that, I go piss people off on Twitter, because I find it cathartic.

  4. Generally Twitter, fact checking websites, and checking the local news websites like AL.com.

    >How much time do you spend researching and participating in government?

    Not a ton, but I read things here and there.

    >Do you have any luck contacting your representatives to get your opinion heard?

    I’m a liberal in a heavy right wing area. My representatives don’t give a fuck about me. They just send back a standard email that some intern wrote a year prior, and then the representative continues to be an embarrassment.

  6. NPR for federal, reddit for local. I very rarely keep up except for major headlines and I don’t participate in government outside of voting and paying taxes.

  7. It takes a bit of time honestly. We are getting a new superintendent and we have a list –so I have been researching them in old newspapers and checking out their resumes.

    Then there is the town government and an election soon.

    I was just reading some complaints about Boston’s mayor so I was researching her a bit to see if it seem legit.

    Also reading about voter suppression in other states as it affects everyone.

    I read the NYT every morning.

    I also do a lot of research on claims by both GOP and democrats. I research in old newspapers a lot.

    BUT – I am pretty interested in politics and the planet.

  9. IMO the absolute least effort way of approaching this while still doing your basic due diligence would be to just register to vote and then research the ballot questions prior to voting. IME there’s always an online ‘guide’ available, even for very local candidates and issue. And yes, the propositions, amendments, etc, not just the candidates are important.

    If you feel you still need more information, again, there are lots of lots of online resources for those. Another way would be to talk to people in your life, (for least drama, probably those that you feel have similar leanings as yours.)

    On the largest ballots usu. presidential time ballots which can have in the area of 50 items on them. I don’t think I’ve had to spend more than oh, 8 hours total before feelings well-enough informed to head to the polls. Although tbf that is probably because I do tend to follow news items of interest before then. So if you don’t, consider you’ll spend more time.

  10. I’ve gone to a couple town halls, county meetings, and met with representatives.

    Most times I’ve emailed them, I just get a canned response. I asked a question to my House of Representative politician and he skirted around my question. No surprise there. I talked in front of the county once. Half of the representatives weren’t paying attention and had no interest in what I was saying.

    I don’t spend too much time. I write 6 or 8 emails a year and average one or two meetings.

  11. I stay involved in politics a bit, volunteering and attending local club meetings. That way I get to contribute and make my voice heard, but also I wind up knowing a lot of politically involved people personally; so I get their direct take and info without it getting filtered by agenda-driven news outlets.

    It’s actually pretty obvious after awhile, when I talk to the person who wrote a bill, and I talked to a person on the committee reviewing the bill, and I read the bill; and then I see the story in the paper, on television, or on social media; how much of the news is bullshit or, at the very least, opinion rather than fact. On the other hand, it also becomes obvious when the elected person is full of shit, as well.

  12. Being politically active and properly educated requires about 10-20 hours a week, after you get used to it, and about 30 or more to get the hang of it.

    If you spend any less doing proper research you’re shortchanging yourself. YouTube is not a good place to go, alternative news is not either, get your news from a variety of mainstream places like NPR, BBC, and Al Jazeera for national, and for local it depends on your state, city and county and how they disseminate information. If there’s a local press follow them, if there are several local news publications follow them all.

  13. Try your local NPR or PBS station. Local NPR stations at least have their own websites with excellent coverage of state and local politics.

  14. I use an app for the bills in Congress, others have mentioned it already

    For state politics, it’s harder. Patch.com & politico playbook do a decent job of reporting what’s going on in my state. And then there’s my local papers, like NJ globe and NJ.com that report on it too

    I used to spend way too much time being informed on politics, now I only spend maybe 45 minutes a day on all news, and I am so much less informed now. Idk how important it is to know every single tiny detail, so I can’t tell if it matters that I’m still aware of what’s going on, but not aware of every single detail.

    Google news is a great way to get the local news you need, but it takes maybe a week of training it to learn what you want to see. You have to go through and hit “hide all stories from X” where X = partisan gossip rags. Salon, the daily wire, stupid outlets like that, they just waste your time and play on your emotions. You want the facts, just the news, no opinions. You can make up your own mind about things, don’t let a news outlet sway your opinion on politics.

    And when I say “you”, I mean me. This is what I found works best for me, but I legit think it’s good advice.

    Also to train Google news, you need to actually look up the outlets you want to read in Google

    Oh, also, ballotpedia is great for learning about the people who represent you

  15. For national politics I read the NYT and WaPo every morning, listen to NPR most mornings while I’m making breakfast and settling in, and listen to the Economist weekly roundup every Sunday. My boyfriend is involved in local politics so he keeps me up to date on whatever nonsense Lori Lightfoot is doing nowadays.

  16. I have about 4 hours a day at work where I can listen to podcasts uninterrupted. Usually at least half of that time is for news podcasts, the other half is for entertainment podcasts and music

    Oh and Reddit. Its useful for seeing what’s important, but I’ll usually find a better source than what most OPs provide

  18. I’m am milllenial with a full time job and family. I spend about 6 hours a week keeping up with the gov. I do all of the below but don’t consider myself political just informed.

    CSPAN has an app that plays house and senate meeting, committee meetings, press briefs and anything else on capital hill. They have a great show that allows anyone to voice their opinion and even directly to a guest on the show. I listen to this as much as possible while at work.

    Each committee and sub posts video of their meeting on their site if it’s not live.

    I also check GovTrack a couple times a week to see what’s getting pushed on the floors.

    Locally, there are similar resources but you have to go to the live feed or follow the minutes online. Example, or schoolboard broadcasts live feed from FB.

    I don’t call my reps often but I have called representatives of my state in the past and even DC to voice my opinion. You don’t usually speak to them but you speak to someone in their office who by law has to track your conversation.

    Statistics are also something I check in on a couple times a year on sites like BLS.

    Lastly, MuckRock posts FOIA request and responses from journals from all around. Very very eye opening.

    It does take time, I mostly catch up at night or first thing in the a.m. but it’s 100% worth it.

    When you do these things you tend to realize the world isn’t red vs blue like the news and the media hungry house reps and senators make it to be. Yes, you have Texas Ted and AOC crying foul on the other side but you also see many of them actually working together on things.

    I’m really scared for our country when a lot of folks on the post say they get their news from Twitter/social media, YouTube, or only major networks. I guess they don’t know how they operate???

  20. Where’s that meme where the guy says, “That’s the neat thing – you don’t!”

    Last November I found a really good local newspaper in the Detroit area that is probably non profit / volunteer, and they actually interviews all the local county commissioner and city office and local judge candidates over Skype. That was pretty awesome and I felt like I really got to know the candidates and chose well.

    Most people just vote straight party line though, I think, which should be illegal.

  21. How much time… – none.

    Do you have… – i’ve never done it.

    i really don’t have any idea what’s going on in local govt and i get all my national info from the news. it’s a bad but honest answer.

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