How I'm Tracking and Influencing My U.S. Legislators

The U.S. legislative body is in a tough spot these days. In light of an executive branch that I didn’t vote for and that I see actively harming those around me, as well as a judicial branch that I see acting against my wishes, I am trying to turn more to my legislators (U.S. Representatives and Senators) as my conduits for making things better.

I want more of my neighbors to do the same, so here are the steps I’m taking that I think you can follow.

Tracking

To get informed as to what is going on, you need to confirm who is representing you: use Congress.gov.

I don’t want to have to manually check on their actions, so I subscribe to their activity (votes, sponsorships, etc.) using GovTrack.us. It basically compiles the voting data from Roll Call Votes by the U.S. Congress at Congress.gov but lets you subscribe over email or RSS. I’m using RSS for their actual votes (high frequency - you could instead do a weekly summary) and I’m subscribed to GovTrack’s weekly email about upcoming legislation that they will be voting on. I recommend you make your own account and set your own subscription preferences.

Then I also subscribe to the promotional communications from each of the legislators. Each one has a YouTube channel or newsletter or something (linked from their profile on congress.gov or govtrack.us) where they promote their own view of their activities. I subscribe to those, too; it lets me know what they think is important to communicate.

Influencing

I’m pretty lucky in that my current reps mostly act in ways that are aligned with my thinking. Duckworth is better than Durbin is better than Quigley, but they’re all mostly voting how I would ask them to.

I go to protests and demonstrations when I can (previously) to bring a physical presence and to bear witness to my representatives, but often I question how effective that can be. It’s obviously not enough. I think it mostly helps influence those around me.

When my reps send out surveys or newsletter updates, I respond when I have an opinion. If they’re asking for input, I want to give it. I sign up for their virtual town halls if they have them.

Everyone (my politically involved friends) says calling actually works, so I’ve recently begun using 5 Calls to quickly call and track calling these U.S. representatives. My plan is to track bills and votes and call about something at least once a month. There is enough controversy about bills already proposed that I think I’ll at least one reason to call every month.