And no, don’t bother calling politicians if you’re not a verifiable constituent they represent. I keep going over this because I continually people saying they’re doing activism, and then telling people to make anonymous calls, or send emails to some official in another state, and that’s just not going to do anything. I’ve explained the tallies, I’ve explained the point, I’ve pointed to experienced references on this stuff.
Well here are actual former congressional staffers explaining it. Again. This is from the Indivisible transcript for the stream on youtube.
5.15.25 What’s the Plan? A Weekly Discussion with Leah and Ezra Indivisible May 15, 2025
Martin asks, when I call MOC, which for those who are a new member of Congress office to leave a comment, the staff member always says.
00:36:54.000 –> 00:37:09.000
I’ll pass that on to the member of Congress. Leah and I are former congressional staffers. I have said something to that effect to many a constituent who has called in. I’ll let my boss know that. I’ll pass that on to the member. I’ll pass that on to the boss. That’s a standard thing that people say. So Martin, that is accurate.
00:37:09.000 –> 00:37:30.000
I bet a lot of you are hearing that when you call a member of Congress. Martin continues, I doubt the staff member actually speaks to the member of Congress about my comment. So what really happens? Does my call end up as a check mark on a tally sheet? If so, would it be more efficient just to say to the staff member, put me down as a blah, blah, blah, no on Medicaid. I’m calling three members of Congress every day. So what’s the best strategy?
00:37:30.000 –> 00:37:59.000
Love the practical question, Martin. Leah, do you want to reflect on your time as a congressional staffer? Sure. Yeah. So a very normal thing that happens if you are a congressional staffer is someone calls and they spend several minutes explaining how they feel about something and you say, thank you, I will pass that on to member of Congress. The way that you’re actually going to pass that on to the member of Congress, as you note, Martin, is you’re going to mark that comment down and you’re going to say that person is a no on cuts to Medicaid. And at the end of the day or at the end of the week, depending on the office, whatever cadence.
00:37:59.000 –> 00:38:06.000
They’re going to get a tally of how many people called in and said, you know, pass this tax bill versus how many people called in and said.
00:38:06.000 –> 00:38:35.000
No cuts to Medicaid. And they’re going to just get a sense of the volume of coverage. And so you are totally right. Like you are free and welcome. And if you want to absolutely share to staffers, it can genuinely help with the vibes to like have a lot of people calling about something personal that’s that’s an intense experience and it does shape how people interact with it. But the actual content that will get shared to the member of Congress, unless you have some kind of extremely important, compelling personal story that they need to do something about.
00:38:35.000 –> 00:38:40.000
The actual comment, the way it’s going to get shared is the number of people who called for cuts on Medicaid. So yes, if you want to save time.
00:38:40.000 –> 00:38:48.000
Call, Sam and no, hang up. That’s fine. I mean, given your address and everything, but you don’t need to do a longer story. They’re not going to have time to share it all.
00:38:48.000 –> 00:38:56.000
Let me just 100% agree on that. Let me add a couple of more items or suggestions that are just practical.
00:38:56.000 –> 00:39:03.000
Your goal is to be counted, right? Your goal is to be one of many people who are there The people that get counted are constituents.
00:39:03.000 –> 00:39:19.000
Non-constituents do not get counted. Full stop. It doesn’t matter how good or bad your member of Congress is. This isn’t a knock on members of Congress. They will ignore you if you are not from the state of their senator or if you’re not from the district of your representative, which means you have to give your address if you want to be counted.
00:39:19.000 –> 00:39:28.000
They are going to then enter you into a system if you’re not already in the system. They’ve got this big complicated software system where they track all the calls that came in.