Number of Participants:
Need: 1,000 to 3,000 per month
communicating to each U.S. Representative
U.S. Representatives respond positively when thousands of their constituents communicate a need. U.S. Representatives love to report to the press that very strong input was received from their constituents on a topic and that they responded positively to the input. Those same thousands of inputs to U.S. Representatives for a given state will be recognized by and cause support from U.S. Senators who are in a state where the U.S. Representatives are being influenced by the communications.
- On average, in each U.S. Congressional District, there are:
- over 600,000 persons
- about 300,000 persons with high-speed internet access
- about 100,000 persons without health insurance
- about 2,000 persons who need to please get reminders to communicate to their U.S. Representative to help get what every other industrialized country has except for the U.S.: simple, efficient, non-profit financing of health care, where the BEST alternative for that is non-profit single-payer national health insurance, as per U.S. House Resolution 676
| Goal | Number of persons getting reminders each month to communicate to their U.S. Representative | |
| Minimum number to get attention | = | 1,000 to 2,000 persons getting reminders |
| Best number to help ensure a positive response | = | 3,000 or more getting reminders |
- It is a significant task to get thousands of people in each district to communicate monthly, following the schedule of note-writing, e-mailing or calling. But the task is doable/feasible with 100,000 people who are uninsured and many more who will care even more deeply when they know the facts.. We can and will do this, but we do need to spread the word! and educate others and ask them if they want to also consider following the schedule and educating 3 others.
- Why do these numbers matter to any U.S. Representative, no matter what their political party is? One person is generally seen as potentially impacting the opinions of at least 10 other people. In fact, some politicians have a “rule of thumb” that one note, especially by the U.S. Mail, represents about 100 votes. Thousands of personal notes is a dramatic input to a U.S. Representative or U.S. Senator.
Additional Information
Whether a letter represents 10 or 1,000 (below), a letter has a big impact on U.S. Representatives.
- Articles about the impact of communications to politicians.
- In an extensive Sierra Club article there is mention about the power of a single personally-composed letter and that it carries much more weight than form letters. It also mentions that “every letter or phone call equals eight to 10 (constituents) in the community …”, and I’ve heard one U.S. Representative’s staff say that it represents 100 constituents in their office.
- This article quotes a U.S. Representative from Georgia that “Legislators estimate that 10 letters from constituents represent the concerns of 10,000 citizens.” – which would be that one personally composed letter represents a thousand citizens.
- From a Colorado article: “Letters, not money, are the mother’s milk of politics. Especially letters from constituents. … Letters are solid. They don’t disappear over electrical waves, as do phone calls. Legislators especially prize written as opposed to typed or computerized letters. It shows effort, and assuming the penmanship is good, it almost presents a voice. But legislators are going to read your letter, no matter whether written or typed.”