Congressmen very rarely (it does happen once a blue moon, with Jupiter rising) read their own mail. Usually, some little beastie in their office handles the mail.

It's the low job on the totem pole. The interns are suckered (no pun intended) into doing the first cut on the mail.

The mail will be sorted into several piles. You want yours in the special pile that will actually be read by someone who gets paid to do so.

How? I will give you the 3 secrets:

1) Hand written.

Computer generated stuff is counted (pro's vs. cons), your name is notated as being pro or con on their computer system and then the letter is round filed.

Hand written letters get read. You actually took the time to sit down and write it. Make sure your writing is good. (You don't want to look like an uneducated oaf.)

2) Check and recheck grammar, spelling, and style.

Again, you don't want to look uneducated. Make sure your language usage and spelling is absolutely correct. Go ahead and use a couple big words too. (What the heck, impress them.)

Be aware of your audience. These people are college grads with no motivation (that includes the elected official). They sit around complaining about not having enough time and fantasizing about being elected to a high office (elected official included again).

You must impress them. Make them say, "Hey, this guy is fairly bright. He might be a bad enemy or a good friend."

3) Be specific and factual.

Don't ramble. Don't try to include every bitch under the sun. Don't assume they have a clue as to anything you are talking about. PLEASE, DON'T PUSH CONSPIRACY THEORIES.

(Trust me, they heard every theory possible a thousand times. Don't push a conspiracy theory unless you have the evidence in your hand to back it up. (A published book is not evidence. "Chariots of the Gods" was a published book.) Otherwise, they will put a "kook" mark next to your name and you will be right up there with the space alien crowd. Your current and future letters will be ignored or laughed at and passed around the intern's toga party.)

Get to the point in your first sentence. (Example: I am contacting you to ask that you oppose HR-666, introduced by Maxine Waters.) You can elaborate and expand on the issue afterwards (again, use only facts you can prove, good spelling and proper grammar).

If you are well written, a staffers will take notice and read your letter.

If you are a savant, your letter may be passed up to the Congressman's chief of staff.

If you are an idiot, your letter may be read by a dozen doped-up, drunken college students during a party.

It's your choice.

From: "David L. Peterson" <dpeterson@timebridge.com>

I also suggest joining Gunowners of America (GOA). They are not as large as the NRA, but they are a hard-core lobbying group, whose guiding principle is no compromise, ever. Some in Congress consider them more effective than the NRA, which has not always worked in our best interests. I'm on their E-mail alert list for my state, and I jump on all their action alerts for state and federal. I don't remember that they have a set joining fee - think it was send what you can.

A couple of pointers when hounding officials.

1. You can E-mail them, but don't waste time writing an encyclopedia - the bodies are rarely read, especially if lengthy. A couple of short paragraphs generally is fine. Include your full name and mailing address, as a lot of representatives ignore input they don't know to be in their district. Make sure your point is in the subject line, because that may be all that's read, i.e.. "oppose H.R. 1234 - Juvenile Crime Act" or whatever.

2. I've gone to the trouble of making contact records in a Legislature sub-folder of Outlook of many relevant contacts on the state and federal level, even many outside my districts, i.e.. key Republican or committee leaders at state and federal level. Saves a ton of time anytime I want to contact a bunch of them regarding some legislation, whether by E-mail, phone, or snail-mail. I think on some government web sources, they have files you can import into your contact managers or address books. *** If you set up some easy way to do it, you're a lot more likely to do it early and often and to as many people as needed. GOA state level alerts in Virginia may include 20 or 30 committee members to contact. I can easily do'em all.

3. Along the line of being as effective as possible for the least effort, if you want to mass E-mail folks, use an E-mail program supporting blind copies, so it isn't evident it's something you broadcast to half of Congress, which would be a turn-off in the eyes of most receivers. Otherwise, copy-and-paste to quickly generate a bunch of individualized E-mails.

4. Call them, even if you've E-mailed them. I prefer to call them in Washington, but then my cell phone has unlimited long distance. Of course, contacting leaders that aren't local will require you spending a few bucks on month on toll charges - still worth it to me. Be polite with their staff, no matter what you think of the representative. You can only do harm by rudeness.

5. Snail-mail - For the full effect, do this too. This is more hassle for me, but mostly because my printer can't handle envelopes.