Advocacy: Making Democracy Work!
There’s an art to working with Congress, but it’s not a hard one to learn! Whether you communicate with your Members of Congress by letter, phone, or with a personal visit, there a few basic principles that will make your efforts most effective.
Think of communicating with your Members of Congress as a long-term process rather than a one-shot deal. This is counter to the way many activists work with Congress, but it’s the key to making your opinions count on Capitol Hill. The most important part of that process is to build a relationship with the staffer in the office who deals with international affairs or judiciary policy (usually a Legislative Assistant, LA, or the Legislative Director, LD). Write their name down. The LAs & LD in an office are directly responsible for researching issues, writing legislation, and helping your Member of Congress formulate policy. And remember: there is much more to Congress than simply voting on existing bills.
There are 3 main ways of communicating with your legislative representative: visiting your representative, calling you representative, and writing your representative. Learn more about each one buy visiting our web pages.
Your Congressional Meeting
- Find your Member of Congress. See www.house.gov or www.senate.gov or call the Congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Give the operator your zip code and ask your senators & representatives.
- Scheduling a visit. Call the congressional office. Ask for the scheduler or for the legislative aide who handles the issues you want to discuss (e.g. immigration, trade, Latin America).
Do's:
- Do learn legislators' committee assignments and where their specialties lie.
- Do identify the aide(s) that handle the issues and build a relationship with them.
- Do present the need for what you're asking the member to do. Use reliable information.
- Do relate situations in their home state or district to legislation.
- Do, in the case of voting records, ask why the member voted the way they did.
- Do show openness to knowledge of the counterarguments.
- Do admit what you don't know. Offer to find out and send information back to the office.
- Do spend time even when the member has a position against yours. You can lessen the intensity of their opposition, or you might even change their position.
Don'ts:
- Don't overload a congressional advocacy visit with too many issues. Stick to 1-2 topics.
- Don't confront, threaten, pressure, or beg or speak with a moralistic tone.
- Don't be argumentative or put them on the defensive; speak with calmness, commitment.
- Don't use easy ideological arguments.
- Don't overstate the case. Members and staff are very busy.
- Don't expect legislators to be specialists; their schedules/workload makes them generalists.
- Don't make promises you can't keep.
- Don't leave the visit without leaving a position or fact sheet in the office.