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redbirdI get email from a variety of activist groups (as I suspect many of you do). They're often asking me to sign a petition "to Congress," which I'm fairly sure will be ignored if it even gets there.
I've started clicking through to some of the petitions, not to sign them, but as a starting point for research. This morning that meant looking up the bill(s) they're petitioning about, and whether my senators and congressmember had taken a position. Then I can send an email, or pick up the phone (email is easier, even if it isn't a weekend).
The disadvantage is that this takes longer than making a call when someone has provided a script, or emailing via the ACLU website with a pre-drafted message. But it seems worth doing, and there's a chance that I'm calling their attention to something that they weren't already paying attention to.
The specifics of the most recent: the email was from ColorofChange.org, about FBI and police surveillance. It turned out both Massachusetts senators are already cosponsoring the bill, so I just emailed my Congressmember.
( the text of my email to Rep. Capuano, if anyone wants to use it as a starting point )
I've started clicking through to some of the petitions, not to sign them, but as a starting point for research. This morning that meant looking up the bill(s) they're petitioning about, and whether my senators and congressmember had taken a position. Then I can send an email, or pick up the phone (email is easier, even if it isn't a weekend).
The disadvantage is that this takes longer than making a call when someone has provided a script, or emailing via the ACLU website with a pre-drafted message. But it seems worth doing, and there's a chance that I'm calling their attention to something that they weren't already paying attention to.
The specifics of the most recent: the email was from ColorofChange.org, about FBI and police surveillance. It turned out both Massachusetts senators are already cosponsoring the bill, so I just emailed my Congressmember.
( the text of my email to Rep. Capuano, if anyone wants to use it as a starting point )
