TAKE ON: PART 3/4

3. TAKE AIM

FROM INDIVISIBLE GUIDE Re: Calling your MoCs (members of Congress):

1. Find the phone numbers for your MoCs. Again, you can find your local MoCs and their office phone numbers, ETC. at www.callmycongress.com.

2. Prepare a single question or issue  per call. For in-person events, you want to prepare a host of questions, but for calls, you want to keep it simple…The question should be about a live issue — e.g. a vote that is coming up, a chance to take a stand, or some other time-sensitive opportunity. The next day or week, pick another issue, and call again on that.

3. Find out who you’re talking to. In general, the staffer who answers the phone will be an intern, a staff assistant, or some other very junior staffer in the MoCs office. But you want to talk to the legislative staffer who covers the issue you’re calling about. There are two ways to go about doing this:

»        Ask to speak to the staffer who handles the issue (immigration, health care etc). Junior staff are usually directed to not tell you who this is, and instead just take down your comment instead.

»        On a different day, call and ask whoever answers the phone, “Hi, can you confirm the name of the staffer who covers [immigration/health care/etc]?” Staff will generally tell you the name. Say “thanks!” and hang up. Ask for the staffer by name when you call back next time.

4.  If you’re directed to voicemail, follow up with email. Then follow up again. Getting a more senior legislative staffer on the phone is tough...

The junior staffer will probably just tell you “I checked, and she’s not at her desk right now, but would you like to leave a voicemail?” Go ahead and leave a voicemail, but don’t expect a call back.

Instead, after you leave that voicemail, follow up with an email to the staffer. If they still don’t respond, follow up again. If they still don’t respond, let the world know that the MoC’s office is dodging you.

BE POLITE BUT PERSISTANT

If the person taking the call says: 

“We don’t take positions on appointments.” Or, “it’s not our business to have a position on who the President appoints… that’s  the President’s responsibility to respond....” 

You might reply:

 “It’s everyone’s business if a man who promotes white supremacy is serving as an advisor to the President,”  or  "But Senator XX has the ability to speak out … other members of Congress have done so,” or “I find it unacceptable that Senator XX refuses to take a position and politely,firmly end the conversation with:

"I’ll be notifying my friends, family and our local news outlets that our Senator doesn’t think it’s his job to represent us or actually respond to his constituents’ concerns.” 

There’s more in the book, but for now, take down the date in the notebook or pad you’ve chosen to use to track all your interactions with public officials, the name of the person(s) you spoke to and the subject of your call. 

Call all three MoCs. If they support your position, let them know you support them.  If they don’t/won’t take a position or intend to take the opposite position use a reasonable facsimile of the sentence in bold print above … and perhaps throw in something about how you will certainly take this MoC’s position on issue X into account when he comes up for re-election.

READ MY NEXT POST: TAKE BACK