How often would they reply? And how often does a regular non-leadership Rep/Senator reply, provided you are a constituent?

By they I mean their office, I don’t expect to hear from them personally.

15 comments

  1. No, everyone has constituent service offices. You contact them if you need assistance in matters related to the federal government. You can walk in or call or email them. There should be an office in the district and one in DC. US Senators will have multiple offices throughout a state.

    Many of them are also experimenting with rotating constituent service offices often held in temporary locations to make it easier for outreach.

    I had a problem with my SSDI check years back. It was cut but was stuck in a warehouse somewhere in Jersey. My US House rep’s constituent services office got a hold of the SS people, tracked down the check and I had it within a couple weeks.

  2. I think contacting them (or their staff) is easy peasy, but whether or not the actual official notices is another thing.

  4. I live in New York, and I mostly contact Gillibrand instead of Schumer when I need to contact my senator on some issue. I haven’t written to Schumer since 2017.

  6. Definitely. When I was in DC in January 2020, my representative was Speaker of the House. So while a lot of my classmates were able to set up meetings with their reps, I couldn’t possibly do that. My senators were Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, neither of whom were particularly available to meet with. I haven’t tried contacting my current senators, and even though I’m sure it’s much easier now, I’d imagine it’s always hard to contact a California senator because they’re the senators from the largest state. I only ever get auto-responses, it’s very difficult to even talk to their office staff.

  8. No. And it doesn’t really matter, IMHO.

    All congress people have large staffs that field 99% of their mail, etc.

    There are three types of things people contact their representatives about. One are political issues. These will result in a, admittedly a form, letter thanking you for your input. I’m sure the most the actual representative gets is a summary that ” the mail is so much % on this side” of whatever.

    Two are letters about claims and matters, most of them not even federal, like a pothole, being denied workers comp, traffic tickets, etc. Some really are federal like the Social Security disability, but in all cases all the staff does is send a form letter to whatever agency is in charge, copying you. The agencies ignore these letters, they know its a game. I worked in state government for a career and we got letters all the time from this or that congressman asking us to look into this or that guys problem. We ignored them and proceeded the matter just like everyone else’s, as we should. But people think ” I’m going to call my congressman ” is some kind of thing.

    Three is stuff like wanting tickets to the inauguration, visiting Washington and wanting some kind of tour, wanting flags that have flown over the Capitol, like that. Again the staff will take care of these, no matter who the representative is.

    If you think you can actually write a congressman or a senator, even the lowest ranked one, and s/he actually is going to give it some time, you are naive. They don’t care, and already know what they are going to do.

    Your real input is in November, if the don’t vote your way, put them out.

  9. Kevin “Lunkhead” McCarthy is my rep.

    You could never get ahold of him even before he became Speaker*

    *for ~25 Mooches

  10. Not really. All of these offices have staff members and of their primary roles is to answer constituent concerns. Your Rep/Senator may not personally address your problem but their office is capable of handling most things.

  11. Contacting a Representative or Senator isn’t really contacting them. It’s contacting the staff member they hired to respond to the public. 99% of those contacts never make it to the actual Congressman.

  12. Our Senator who was the chair of the party elections campaign was much less responsive than the senator who wasn’t, but that’s just one data point.

  13. My congressman is Tom Emmer (house majority whip). He ***never*** responds. And by he, I mean his office, too.

    Michele Bachmann (yes, we elect weirdoes) actually did take the time to respond.

    I’ve gotten more response from my U.S. senators.

  14. In the District that I used to live, my Congressman’s Director of Communications called me personally once.

  15. I have written to them and gotten a response from their offices. Same with a friend of mine. My friend was able to get help from one of them.

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