What can we do?

A friend and reader has asked me a very astute and important question pertaining to the conversation I try to illicit here. “What can we do?”
She said she sees wisdom in some of my writings, but feels powerless against the political machine that we have discussed. She feels that her voice is inaudible to the people that purport to represent her in the State and Federal government. She told me that she does feel impelled to make her opinions known to her representatives but is uncertain how to do so, or if it would make any difference should she succeed.
In response, I promised that I would dedicate an entry to describe actions that can aid her, and all of us, in the struggles to have our voices heard by those in office. I, like you, feel this same overwhelming sense of drowning when I consider the task of communicating with my representation in government. There is a disconnect felt, in my opinion by design, from the electorate and those serving. Anecdotally we could view this as an email server with a list of addresses to ignore. With our addresses on the list, our messages are deleted upon arrival, or dropped into the bulk mail folder, never to be viewed, before the folder is emptied upon exiting the application.
So, how does a person whose address has landed in the spam folder get a message to the recipient? Well, it appears to be very cumbersome, and to many, intimidating.

While every government official will always tell us to feel free to contact them, most of us know that (at least at higher levels) our messages are reviewed by a low level staffer, likely an intern, who then summarizes the bulk of messages to a higher level staffer, possibly a more experienced intern, who then summarizes the summary for a high level staffer, who in turn summarizes that summarized summary for the chief of staff, who in turn tells the representative that they have mail, it’s been opened and read, no actions required at this time.
It sounds ridiculous, I know, but it is almost certainly the norm for those in Federal, or even state wide, offices.

So, how can I help? Well, I can offer some advice and provide some links for you. Sounds like a pittance in comparison to the task, but I assure you that you will feel better about the situation after you read on.
First things first, who are the people that represent you? Well, we all have the same … er.. huhumm … President. (eghk, I feel dirty. Oh, did I say that out loud?) The executive branch of the federal government denotes a constituency of the sum of all citizens of the United States. So, that one is easy. If all you want to do is send a message to the White House, hit www.whitehouse.gov and you will find a neat little ‘contact us’ tab where you can drop a message into their junk bin, I mean, send an email to the President. All joking aside, it is at that site where you can find a physical address for sending snail mail, as well as the telephone number where you can call and speak with staffers and/or leave messages. (up until Obama this number had a 24/7 voicemail but now it will only accept messages during business hours). Don’t get discouraged. Executive branch has a constituency of more than 300 million people. That’s a lot of messages; nobody can reasonably expect the President to answer his own phone for all of those. However, from there we can also find contact for the Vice-President and the Cabinet. Feel free to send messages to all of them. Copy and paste a message body if it suits you. Just be sure to change the salutation for each recipient. It would be disrespectful to send messages addressed to the wrong person.
Speaking of disrespectful, if you really want to help your cause, be certain to always show respect to the person you are writing to, whether or not you feel the person deserves your respect. If it makes you feel better, address their office/title with respect. “Dear Senator” instead of “Hey Wafflin’ John” would be a good example of this.
I have yet to discover a method to gather any information on all of the Czars. They seem to be completely covert, yet they each garner more power and taxpayer money than the true Cabinet positions ….. Hmmmm.

Very well, we have touched on the Federal Executive; now let’s address the Federal Legislative. As you know, the Legislative is made up of two bodies, The House of Representatives and the Senate.
The Senate provides for two seats for each of the fifty states to create equal representation in the Senate for all states regardless of size or population. These two seats do not have specific districts for each, but rather treat both as statewide representation to the federal government. So, both of those individuals have a constituency of each resident of their respective state. That is still a lot of people. Most of us know who our two Senators are. You can find them at www.senate.gov
If you click the ‘Senators’ link in the top navigation pane, you will be redirected to a page where you can search by state, name, or class. (I can speak about class in another installment if it should be requested) Once you have your two Senators names displayed, you can click their name to be redirected to their Senate page containing various news items, contact, etc. Those of us in Massachusetts please note, while Paul Kirk is listed as a Senator right now, he was appointed to replace the deceased Ted Kennedy. An appointment by Governor Deval Patrick who slipped in the press conference stating that Mr. Kirk was appointed because Deval really liked Star Trek. No, I’m kidding. The slip was that Kirk was appointed “because we can count on him to continue Se. Kennedy’s work”. Translation: we can count on him to do what we (Obama) tell him to do and nothing else. So, if you’re bored and want to talk with him, feel free, but it won’t do anything. He’ll be gone following special election in January 2010. Depending upon one Senator Lieberman, he may not even have a chance to rubber stamp Big Red for his boss, Mr. Obama. As many of us may have shouted repeatedly as a child playing war in the back yard, Go Joe!
Much more importantly for our specific purpose here, is the top navigation menu on the Senate website. If you click on ‘Legislation & Records’ you will find a page that is a virtual cornucopia of information. Much of it will seem nonsensical if it is the first time you bear witness to the records of government. But, thanks to the internet, with a little experience you will find yourself navigating and understanding.
Bills are always given a number, like an ID code. In the House of Representatives, this ID is HR.xxxx and in the Senate the ID is S.xxxx. Back in the day one would have to find this ID# to search for the happenings around a particular bill. Now, we can search by its popular names. So, if you type in “Giant Communo-fascist Bolshevik Revolution” you will be immediately directed to Barrack Obama’s healthcare bill. Well, not really, but how funny would that be?
Seriously, using the page you can search by ‘healthcare’ or ‘capital gains tax’ the list presented will be much more manageable. This is an unbelievable leverage of information that the common citizen could not have imagined just a score ago. Use it frequently. It will bring you to, and let you download, the PDF file of the actual bill being debated.
There is no shortcut here. You have to read the bills. 99% of the time you will be wondering if you should call a lawyer or a Martian interpreter. The bills read very dry, fantastically long winded, and often have many references to other very long, very dry, and very Martian sounding bills and/or existing legislation. But, you have to do it. There is no better source of information than the actual bill. Once you have the bill you can forget everything the “news” has told you about this particular bill and read it yourself.
I use the example of the recent Massachusetts “pandemic bill” which was touted as a means to protect the population in the event of a swine flu pandemic. I read the bill folks, it doesn’t say anything about anyone being, getting, or attempts to prevent anyone from getting, sick. All it says is that the Governor declares an emergency and sends the state police to take you from your home, by physical force if necessary. But, even now that it is law; it is still referred to as “pandemic bill” ….

And now, a question for you; we all know our ZIP code. That 5 digit code that the Post Office needs to put on anything that is shipped into or within the US. But, how many of us know what our 'ZIP+4' is? And if so, do we know what the +4 is for?
Well, among other things that the Post Office may need it for, those extra 4 digits on the back end of our ZIP code are used to split geographic areas into districts for our House of Representatives.
The House is constantly growing. You see, the number of Representatives for the states depends on population. More populous states get more Representatives. More Reps., more votes. The two per state system in the Senate was designed to offset the obvious advantage different states may have in the House. So, since population is constantly growing and shifting, the number of Representatives is also constantly growing and shifting. Article I Section 2 of the US Constitution enumerated the Representatives as “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
This was later revised in Amendment 14 of the US Constitution to read “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed”
What does all this mean? Well, they take the census information for each state and use those numbers to determine how many districts it will have. The number of districts equals the number of Representatives for each state and, therefore, which seats represent which geographical areas. It is because of this method that I find it both disturbing and horrifying to learn that Barrack Obama has, by Executive Order, has altered the method by which the actual enumeration is completed to include a technique known as ‘sampling’.
Sampling, for lack of a better description, is guessing. The US Constitution calls for the enumeration of the citizens of the United States. So, when the Census Bureau worker knocked on a door, when that door opened he/she would count how many people lived there (Mom, Dad, son, daughter). That sounds simple and reasonable enough to me.
Under sampling techniques, that same worker, at that same house, can look at the home and say “well, there were 2 adults and 2 children that I could see, but the second level of that house looked big enough for 2 more adult people to live up there, so I will count those people, as well.
For only a few single family homes, this wouldn’t alter the number by a large percentage. But, if you have that same person looking up at the monolithic apartment complexes of the big cities, the variance will be astounding. And, as such, large cities will have extraordinarily bloated census numbers, and their respective states will get more districts based on those numbers, and more taxes apportioned by those numbers. To oversimplify, it’s telling the government you have to feed five people instead of 2 so they send more food. It is intentional lying to facilitate the theft of tax dollars.
Although the Reapportionment Act of 1929 capped the House at 435 Members, the districts they serve can be altered and, with passage of another law, the number can be changed as well. But, I digress.
The House of Representatives uses your ZIP+4 to determine your district and, therefore, your Representative. So, look at your license or some mail, get your ZIP+4 and head to www.house.gov
There in the top left of the page you will find the search field to find out who your Rep is.
Now we are getting somewhere. A member of the House of Representatives has a geographical district to represent. Only those who are residents in his/her geographical district are his constituents. The average constituency of any on Representative is about 650,000 citizens. Obvious variances will occur given different size districts but, that is a much lower number than 300+ million. It’s not low enough to expect any Rep to talk to every person he represents in each two year term. But, He/she is certainly more reachable. Find out who your Rep is and get contact information. Not just the DC information. Go to their individual sites and get the local office contact information. They all have their own sites independent of the house.gov pages and they are all required to keep offices in their districts staffed. Even when they themselves are in Washington, there is somebody there. Call often, leave messages. Write letters and emails. Keep up with the news about your Rep and watch their voting record. When you call them, make sure they know you are informed. Be specific, respectful and reasonable. Make sure they know that you vote, and don’t be afraid to tell them that you will gladly work with their opponents in the next election if you remain unsatisfied. Be conservative in your demands. Be assertive, but not uncompromising. If they think you’re a nut, they will discount your opinion. But, if they hear an argument that would sway other voters you speak with, they will listen. Remember, they are up for re election every two years. Their seat is virtually always on the line. If you make them believe they could have an influential ally or adversary in you depending on their voting, you have won.
My Representative is Jim McGovern. He doesn’t reply to any of my messages anymore, but I’m certain he recognizes my name. I’m also certain he knows that I will do anything in my power to pry his ass out of that seat.

State government: I will address Massachusetts State gov’t specifically. But, anyone from another state with questions, please feel free to contact me or leave a comment and I will certainly help you to know more about your state government.
Governor Deval Patrick has contact information listed at www.mass.gov/governor
The mass.gov site will be the main page through which you can locate your state representation. On the home page there is a left navigation bar to allow access to mass.gov/legis where you can find the General Court of the Commonwealth, commonly referred to as the State Legislature. Modeled after the Federal Legislative, it consists of two bodies: The State Senate and the State House of Representatives. Unlike their Federal namesakes, both bodies are district representative and for your town and address you will have a listed State Rep and State Senator. While you will find the Governor’s office to be only slightly more responsive than the President’s, please feel free to write, call, and email often. At this level, sheer numbers of messages could possibly have an effect. At the very least, there is less of a filter between us and the Governor than between us and the President. Rightfully so ;)
But, Your State Rep and State Senator are very likely to meet with you in person, if you so choose. And they have a small enough constituency that your one vote matters to them. Again, regardless of your politics or personal feelings, be respectful and informed.
The site will allow you to search by town/district to determine your State Rep and Senator and then link to their individual contact information and biography. From the /legis page you can also search current state bills being considered, roll call votes, recent news, and even streaming video feeds from the separate bodies (when in session). The site is not very flashy, but just gushing with information, which is how tax dollars should be spent. State Legislature roll call votes are also public information, just like the Federal Legislature. So, you can follow your State Rep and/or State Senator around (via phone and email I am not advocating or condoning stalking behaviors) with their voting record in hand and ask them why they voted the way they did. Many State Legislators have their own websites, as well. Use them to find out about events where they will be fundraising and attend. You will be able to speak with them face to face at those events. Once again, be respectful and reasonable if you want to be heard. You may find out that your Rep, like mine, also has a Facebook or other social networking site. Don’t be afraid to add them to your friend list. I am lucky. My State Rep is an intelligent and reasonable man with whom I have enjoyed many interesting conversations that could have certainly continued if not for the pressure of time we both have. We know each other by sight and first name.

You may have noticed recurring themes here. The most important one is to be INFORMED. The others are related to your interaction by being calm, respectful and reasonable. You won’t be taken seriously if you are a ranting red-faced crazy person staking out the office. But most importantly, get your data right.
Make sure you know as much as humanly possible about the subjects you intend to discuss. Keep reference data; make notes of historical laws and other facts that may aid you. Facts are stubborn things. Those of you who have the pleasure (or displeasure, if you think so) of knowing and/or debating with me have heard me say it many a time. It is a quote attributed to the Statesman Benjamin Franklin, though it has also been attributed to many others, and is a favorite of mine. Facts are very stubborn things. An established fact does not change if we like it, dislike it, find it gross, or stupid, relevant or irrelevant, strange, reasonable or any other view. It remains a fact. But, we must be careful of “facts”. Ha! Yes, punctuation is so important. In the world today we are bombarded 24/7 by news, advertisements, TV, radio and lord knows how many other media, electronic or otherwise. And many of those news sources purport to have journalists reporting the news. Almost all of them are full of shit. I am uncertain if there are ANY journalists in America today. A journalist reports facts. Period. No commentary, conjecture, speculation, or opinion included. (assembly required)
The evening news discussing a house fire on such and such street may constitute journalism for a few minutes, but those people are not journalists. Pick any news show, channel or newspaper and you will likely find out that they are handing out commentary and calling it journalism. Some of you probably know that I .. think very little of the New York Times, to put it nicely. The reason for that is because the entire newspaper has become an Op-Ed page. If I want opinion writers, I’ll turn to the opinion page, I want the NEWS on the front page, not your preferred view of the news, not the news you think I should be talking about, the NEWS. The origin of the word news is as an acronym. North East West South (NEWS) and it was the desire to know the various goings on in the area in which one lived and surrounding territories. I want facts, not what you think of the facts that you haven’t told me. I pick on the New York Times because they are so very visible, and because they don’t even attempt to disguise the fact that they are full of shit anymore. I have told a friend of mine who loves the paper that I would let my dog use it as a training pad and he would contribute as much to journalism as all of the writers in the employ of the paper. And, I believe that completely.
My point is that all of your facts must be properly vetted. Do the research. Find multiple sources on the same subjects. We all have our favorites, but multiples is the way to go. As with other things in life.

You will get further in conversation with your representatives if you format your conversation as if you were asking them about the subject rather than telling them. Let them describe it from their point of view and use your data to challenge where appropriate. Make suggestions, not demands. Ask how you can help them achieve the goals you set for them. Take a collaborative approach whenever possible and check your ego at the door. You’re one citizen of many, they hold the seat. If you want them to listen to you seriously, you have to make them believe it is in their best interest to do so. But remember, they are all in politics. Breaking that word into its roots one will find poly-the prefix meaning many, and ticks- meaning blood sucking parasites. In dealing with them I would refer to another of my favorite American character’s quotes, one Ronald Reagan was known to say “Trust, but verify”. So, give them time to react to your conversations, but follow up to be sure they know you are still there. On a personal note, I have found my fascination with early American History, and specifically the Founders, to be immensely useful in overcoming some anecdotal objections. If you are so inclined, I highly recommend Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Paine as names whose research will bear much fruit for argumentative ammunition.

Okay my friends and readers; this is the most comprehensive narrative on becoming a political junkie that I could try to construct. If you have made it this far, you are likely already well on your way. To which I say, “How about I grab a sixer of Sam Light and come over to watch C-Span? Harry Reid will be on tonight!”


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Alex Lonchiadis