Attention Friends,
In an effort to help my fellow citizens affect civic change, I feel that there are certain tricks of the trade that you may need to know. Every citizen has the right and the responsibility to participate in their government if they want the right to complain about it. Either try to change it or stop bitching. But writer, you may say, I have sent so many form emails blasted out to the entire legislature! Surely they cannot have ignored the opinions of a citizen! I also get a lot of, "I'm going to start a petition". These two strategies would not legislate you out of a wet paper bag in my opinion.
1. There are very few actions prescribed BY LAW that a legislator, executive, administrator, etc. MUST do when faced with a petition. They may make changes for fear of their position if you get enough signatures, but the number required to really make a hardened government stooge look twice would have to be a very large portion of their constituency. They are only afraid of a petition if that petition spells "Lost Election" if ignored. That means that at least half of the voting populace should be on board, and that is an extremely hard thing to do. Just ask Rick Perry, or Newt Gingrich. With millions of dollars and dozens of volunteers, they could not garner the petty 10,000 votes needed to appear on the Virginia Republican Primary ballot this year. Newt Gingrich currently resides in McLean VIRGINIA.
Instead of a petition with signatures, better to take a large group (5-10) in person to meet with the administrator, legislator, whatnot. The group is safely below protest levels, but serves to show that you are not alone in your fight. Having to look people in the eye is also a big draw, rather than cold signatures on a page. The next trick to this is to be an aggressive scheduler. Have a date and time in mind, and slowly work outwards until you can find a foothold in the guy's schedule. A "call back" or an "I'll let him know, and we'll return your call" is far too easily forgotten. Try to make your appointment with ONE call.
2. DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT, take a website form and blast the whole legislature's/department's inbox that they have attached. Not only will you not change anything, they will most likely never see it. The official office email addresses that such issue sites use are available publicly. Odds are a couple of things will keep forms from being seen or cared about. First, with the kind of volume that such emails come in, the task of sifting through them often falls to some underpaid intern or office worker who is looking at hundreds a day and only looks at the town or state to see if the person matters. Also, the email addresses that are used for public servants have stringent spam filters to keep out penis enlargement ads and phishing schemes. Many times, since the server takes in so many of the same email (just with different signatures) it identifies the email as spam.
The trick is to distinguish yourself from the pack and if anything, only email your own legislator. Use a completely different subject line; one that identifies you as a contituent. Letting your guy know that you are right in his own back yard automatically distinguishes you as someone to respond to.
I hope that I have helped future activists. The need for government to change is never ending, and I'm here to help you guys fight for what you think is right.
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