Your Representative Isn't Listening. Here's Why.

And where you can focus your efforts for better results.

An old telephone switchboard, unused. Credit: Freepik

Dear friends

A few of you have mentioned your frustration that your calls to representatives aren't making a dent. Some of you are calling members of Congress. Others are reaching out to state-level officials, like senators, governors, or attorneys general. Across the board, the experience is often the same: no reply, no shift, no sign that it mattered.

So what’s actually going on here? Why is it that even when thousands of people flood phone lines or submit public comments, the response is silence — or, at best, a form letter?

The answer isn’t simple, because not all representatives operate in the same structure. A Democratic governor in a blue state faces different pressures than a Republican senator in a gerrymandered district — or a state assembly member trying to keep their seat in a purple state. But the deeper pattern is the same: many of the channels that used to connect public pressure to political action have been deliberate…