Writing Legislators

Quality of Letters

Do not use form letters. Form letters may alienate legislative staffs who try to read and respond to each letter.
If individuals cannot adapt a letter to make it unique, then they might sign one letter and add a unique comment. Count this as one letter unless it is part of an effort to collect signatures for a petition.

Quality letters are:

• Personalized—contains some sense of a constituent’s sentiment

• Concise—respectful of staffs’ workloads

• Informative—contains specific information about the legislation in question, so that staffs do not need to research it in order to act on it

• Targeted—includes a sense of the legislator’s stance on the issue and the impact on the legislator’s constituents

Letter Writing Tips

• State your purpose and your Ask in the first paragraph. Include information about the bill, e.g., House bill: H.R. _____; Senate bill: S. _____.

• Keep your letter to one page and one issue.

• Explain why this is important to you and your community. Speak from your experience.  Be clear that your views are your own.

• Sign your letter. Add your professional association affiliation if you are a public employee. If you do not receive public funds, add your organization’s affiliation. If you are uncertain how to sign, then sign as a private citizen.

• Use personal stationery if you are a public employee.

Letter Format

Sending Letters

Do not use the U.S. postal service to send letters to Capitol Hill. If you do not have access to FAX or email, then your next alternatives are to hand deliver the letter or mail it. The anthrax screening process takes up to four weeks and delays delivery of your letter. It also leaves mail yellow and brittle and legislative staffs generally do not like it.

Letter Examples

• Letter for Newly Elected Officials
• Sample Letter from an Adult Basic Education Learner
• Sample Letter from an English Language Learner
• TAACE Teacher Lesson Plan on Letter-Writing

Organize Local Networks to Write

Planning

• Sign up for the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) Network to participate in the annual federal-level letter writing campaign. Contact the SPOC from your state and request to be added to your state network’s list.

• Organize a letter writing campaign in your local area using the SPOC letter writing alert. The alert contains the message, Ask, and target number of letters for each Senator and Representative.

• Identify civic leaders, adult education graduates, businesses and labor representatives who would be willing to write personalized letters.

• Involve students to write. Plan advocacy, civics, English or language arts lesson activities that will include letter writing. See this sample lesson plan or this advocacy unit on Your Government, Your Taxes, Your Choices for ideas.

Implementing

• Share the alert with civic leaders, businesses, labor unions, adult education graduates, and others. Consider sharing letter writing tips, like those above. Explain why they should not use form letters.

• Involve students. Make it a part of English, civics, math, or language arts instruction.

• Relate lessons to real life situations, like when learners may need to contact a legislator for help.
• Demonstrate how to call your Congressman’s office.
• Make participation fun—count and track responses to the alert.
• Use response numbers in math-related activities; chart responses from the community.
• Invite legislators to visit, speak with the class, and answer questions.
• Focus on results after the campaign and celebrate successes.

• Set weekly benchmarks and check in with your network on progress.
• Use log sheets or other tools to track results.
• Check the Senate and House Congressional calendars to find out when legislators will be home and invite them to meet with adult learners and program staff.

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