I've entitled this section, "what are they doing?"
because we want to look further at what actions you may expect your
congressman's office to take and whether those actions are significant or
not. We'll also hopefully help you
decide when it is worthwhile to contact your representative's office to show
your support for specific actions. This
section deals with legislative issues, not general constituent contacts over
personal problems with the bureaucracy.
In each two year session of Congress there are thousands of
bills introduced by Members of Congress.
Only a very tiny minority of these bills ever pass a single chamber and
even fewer still ever get signed into law.
Of those that are passed and signed, only a fraction are substantive
laws. Many of the new laws that are
passed are still laws that don't impact how the nation is governed, such as
commemorative coin laws, laws giving post offices names, and other similar
acts. Many of the bills Members of
Congress introduce are "stand alone bills" that contain a specific
issue fix or a specific policy change.
These bills are often used purely as messaging bills to allow the
representative to show that he or she is taking action on an issue. However, as a caveat, it is also true that
sometimes these bills are incorporated into larger bills, known as
"vehicles" which have a good chance of being implemented as law. Still, there are far more bills introduced
merely to look good to the public than are introduced with the intention of
achieving a change in the law.
When a bill vehicle is on the floor there will often be many
amendments offered. Amendments that are
non-controversial will typically be lumped together and voted on all at
once. Amendments that are supported by
leadership, such as the Speaker or the Chairman whose committee reported the
bill to the entire chamber, may be included in what is known as a manager's
amendment. Amendments in the manager's
amendment are also usually non-controversial and may include technical changes
to the bill text such as fixes to typographical errors. Like bills, amendments are often offered for
purposes of messaging even when the Member of Congress knows that his or her
amendments have no chance of being added to the vehicle. Amendments can also be used as political
tools to require other Members of Congress to make unpopular votes on specific
issues. This tactic is especially used
by the minority, since it lacks the ability to bring its own bills to the floor
for consideration.
Next, Members of Congress can write official letters to each
other and other parts of the government.
These letters usually either ask for a government action, cessation of a
government action, or express support or opposition to a particular
policy. These letter do not have the
force of law, so the only useful thing they do is show how many Members of
Congress are supportive of the policy position put forward in the letter. Unfortunately, many Members of Congress use
official letters as a way to "show action" to their constituents when
in reality they either cannot or will not do anything substantively to address
the issue.
In addition to official acts, such as letters and
legislation, Members of Congress (and their offices) can also do a number of
informal things. A Member's staff can
push for a specific policy with the committee of jurisdiction, they can contact
the relevant government agency responsible for the issue and pressure them to
take administrative action, and sometimes even reach out to important lobbyists
to have them advocate a position to the government from the outside. Of course, lobbyists have their own agenda,
but every side of every issue typically has lobbyists and they're often eager
to coordinate with a friendly Member of Congress on advocacy for their
issue. Lobbyists are also susceptible to
logrolling and can be convinced to lobby for an issue they care about less in
order to get assistance with their core interests. It isn't unusual to see odd combinations of
lobbyists on certain issues that are susceptible to this kind of coalition
building.
How dedicated your Member of Congress is to a specific issue
can often be gauged by how many of these tactics he or she is willing to engage
in. If the Member is dropping bills and
amendments, writing letters, and leading a coalition of groups on an issue then
he or she is probably using all the influence they possess to achieve an
outcome. If the Member just dropped a
bill and issued a press release, or just wrote a letter, then there is some
commitment, but it may or may not be that deep.
Keep in mind that Congress is controlled by leadership. Leadership decides which bills comes up for
votes, which bills move through committee, what policies are priorities in
conference committees, etc... Your
representative may be writing ineffective letters and dropping bills that have
no chance of passage because there is literally nothing else he or she can do.
So how should this affect your thought process when you want
to contact your representative's office on a legislative issue. First, think about what issue you're planning
to contact your representative about. Is
it a hot button issue that's a part of a bill that you know is coming, like the
annual budget, but hasn't been introduced yet?
If so, this is probably your best opportunity to contact your
representative, especially if he or she is in the majority. Leadership wants to pass these big ticket
bills so they try to craft them so that all their party members can support the
bill. This means they'll be whipping
your representative on the bill (leadership asking about or pressuring a Member
on legislation is referred to as a whip).
Your representative will likely be thinking a lot about the constituents
back home when deciding what to ask for on the big ticket bill.
Is the bill a single issue bill? Your representative is likely getting whipped
hard on these kinds of bills. If you
want an outcome different than leadership you need to let your representative
know that his or her district supports that different outcome. Members can get a "pass" from
leadership if they really need to vote their district. (This, of course, is one of the problems with
D.C. A lot of Members vote one way and
hope the other.) If your Member is a
principled person your call of support will help even more, because he or she
is probably voting against leadership without getting a pass, which can have
negative consequences in things like fundraising and even committee assignments
(if your representative is a habitual violator). Your representative will be more likely to
take the heat if there is a lot of constituent support for defiant actions
(note, supportive statements probably shouldn't include a threat if the Member
caves or a reference to who pays who's salary).
We've looked at a couple of examples of when you should call
your Congressman, but when is it probably a waste of everyone's time? Is the issue you're calling about one of
those thousands of bills with few cosponsors or only minority party
cosponsors? Is the bill in question
still in that subcommittee it's been in for the last six months? Chances are, it isn't going anywhere. Unless your representative sits on the
subcommittee in question there probably isn't any point in contacting your
representative about this issue. Keep an
eye on the bill and if it gets reported out to the full committee then pick up
the phone. Bills that aren't moving in
committee will not come to the floor.
Is the bill a House bill or a Senate bill? There probably isn't any reason to call your
Senators about House bills or your Representatives about Senate bills until it
looks like those bills may pass the full chamber. There may be a companion bill with the same
or similar language in the other chamber though, so you might want to call
about that instead.
Is the issue you're calling about a political question? If you don't like the way a cabinet official
is doing his or her job there's no point in calling your Member of Congress. They can't affect how those officials are
doing their jobs either. Yes, the
Congress can conduct oversight hearings (maybe we can talk about the
effectiveness, or lack thereof, in another post) and have some official tools
they can use, but ultimately all those things are probably not going to change
the behavior of the executive branch.
You'll have to elect a different president to get different executive
branch policies.
So take the time to investigate the issue you're planning to
contact your representative about. Make
sure you're not wasting your time on non-issues and learn to evaluate your
representative's commitment to an issue by asking about the specific steps he
or she is taking to advance the preferred policy. If it isn't clear what they're trying to
accomplish or what they think is going to happen on an issue, then ask
them. For example, if they say they've
written a letter to an agency to address a problem ask them whether they think
the agency will change its policy. Ask
if they can share the agency's reply letter to you when it arrives (typically
within 6-8 weeks). If you take the time
to ask questions and properly inform yourself on an issue you'll be much better
able to evaluate your representative's performance and to influence how they
handle the issues that matter to you.
Have additional questions?
Leave them in the comment section below.
