I wasn't really considering that he'd write me back, but interestingly enough he did. I got a form letter on congressional letterhead thanking me for communicating to him; I would bet that 80% of the letter was written by someone within their caucus, or maybe the Administration, to distribute to congressmen who hear from people who object to the bill. I'm going to test this theory by writing to other NY congressmen to see what I receive.
I'm glad that my congressman actually responded to me - although he's dead wrong and I've got a post brewing that will eviscerate the letter, line by line. I wonder to what degree he's willing to be a rubber stamp - he must covet that seat on the Ways and Means Committee. (This is the committee that is writing legislation as we speak to "surtax" individuals and couples to pay for health care, on top of the expiration of Bush's tax cuts). Read here -
FOR THE RECORD: I wrote to Sen. Boxer of California, Sens. Schumer and Gillibrand, and Congressman Brian Higgins recently. Sen. Boxer responded to me first and I'm not even a constituent. Higgins responded to me much later, and I haven't heard from my own senators at all. I can't wait for the Taste of Buffalo - Sen. Schumer is always there. I'm going to introduce myself and ask him why I haven't heard from him yet (I wrote him after I found out that he was among the porkiest of the pigs w/respect to taxpayer funded travel). Read about that here -
I have some experience with this type of stuff- one of my first tasks at the paper was to manage an online petition, something about proceeds from the New York Power Authority. If I recall correctly, we were sending out petitions to Hillary Clinton, Brian Higgins, George Pataki, Thomas Reynolds, Charles Schumer, Louise Slaughter, and I think one or two people at NYPA. Some of them agreed, some disagreed, some didn't really care. Those who agreed with us helped us organize the petition so that it would be most visible to our representatives.
For starters, emailing your representative is probably the easiest way to get your voice ignored. Therefore, although we were collecting the petitions online, I had to print every petition on a separate page, fully addressed as a separate letter [which were bundled together and sent in one large envelope every day].
Secondly, people are motherfucking lazy even if they care about the issue. So we had a form letter already filled out. You could delete it and write your own thing which happened once every few days. Mostly people would leave it intact, sometimes they would change a couple words. If somebody took the time, I would shuffle their letter to the top of the packet. So yeah, constituents write form letters too, in a way.
A number of the people at work also filled out the petition, so we were able to gauge the response of politicians. Even though Brian Higgins was spearheading the effort and worked closely with us as an organization, nobody heard back from his office individually. Hillary Clinton was the only politician who responded individually even though it probably wasn't her jurisdiction [I have heard on a number of occasions that her office was very good at correspondence]. Louise Slaughter knew she needed to have an opinion but couldn't come up with one [also her main office is in Fairport, yay gerrymandering].
Here's what I gather about the process: the letter is opened and read by an intern, who classifies it by issue and position. They probably keep an approximate tally, but remember that people are a lot less likely to write to a representative they agree with. There is probably a form letter for each issue that has been written or at least approved by the politician. Think about it- the last thing they need is some intern sticking their foot in the senator's mouth. They do not have separate letters for people who agree or disagree, and thus the language often seems a little out-of-step. They run the letter through the autopen, meter it, and ship it out. Maybe they put your name on a mailing list, maybe not. I don't know what happens if you keep writing back, it would be interesting to find out.
- Z
You should totally wear one of those antonio banderas masks and don't forget to take a sword - you know, to slash a J on that Shumer bloke's shirt when he being diverted by the grease on the chicken wings or something.
Hope that isn't the only reason you are looking forward to The Taste of Buffalo this weekend
Most likely, an intern wrote the letter loosely based on some type of form response that was previously approved by one of Higgins' staffers. I know because I used to write them as an intern for the previous occupant of Higgins' seat.