Letters to Congress

Inspired by Hiya Swanhuyser and Jonathan Hunt, I bought a typewriter with the express purpose of writing letters to our congressional, state, and city representatives.

Will you join me?

Here’s what I propose: write a letter a week–typed or longhand–to your representative.

Take a photo of it and share it on Facebook and Twitter, addressed to your representative. ALSO, mail it to them. If you like, attach a campaign contribution ($1-$10?)–put that into the photo you share.

Why typed or longhand? Because they carry more weight. It shows that you put time and effort into your letter.

Why a donation? Money talks. Members of Congress spend most of their time fundraising and you can bet they listen to their donors. Tired of the wealthy and powerful controlling politics? Me too. There are thousands of wealthy individuals and corporations paying for representation. But, there are millions of us. 

Consider this: there was about $1.6 billion raised for this presidential election. There are ~150 million registered voters in the US. If every voter gave a dollar a week to a campaign, we’d contribute a total of $7.8 billion dollars. That’s enough money to drown out current donations nearly 5 times over. That’s how to get yourself heard. Think of it as a GoFundMe campaign to reclaim government. 

Why share to social media? Because there’s strength in numbers. If we share our demands with each other, we build a coalition. Sharing begets more sharing. The more we raise hell, the more we will be heard. Do you think social media is an echo chamber? Imagine if those echoes were heard loudly by your representatives.

I’ll post my first letter tomorrow.