Do you think this does any good? Do you think they even read them or does a staffer just sift through the crap?

Has anyone here ever done this, and if so did you get a response?

Huh? Are you a senator? I'll write you a letter.

As long as it's not about potatoes.

Actually, it IS about potatoes.

Well, it's about POTATOFACES

Occassionally it can be of use, depending on how persuasive you are and how salient your point is. Most of it depends on who you are, thats something you will have to deal with. Should you write just to bitch your letter will be unceremoniously discarded. That being said, iff you really want to influence your legislators meet with them, its pretty simple. Ask for a few minutes of their time and tell them the specifics. Word of caution: do not expect to meet with them during session.

Thanks. I wrote to one of my senators (Sununu) so we'll see. I'm going to try to get a meeting with him over the summer if that'll work. He has an office in my town and another in a town about a half hour from here.

I've actually already met him a few times socially. He's a nice guy - easy to talk too. His sister in law's father is my old boss (six degrees kind of thing).

Anyway, thanks for the advice.

I don't know what good this does if it's not part of a specific campaign. I've written Libby Dole and Richard Burr a few times. They're real lockstep Republicans, so they have never, even once, cast a vote that I agreed with. Whenever I've written them, I've gotten lame, patronizing responses back about whey they are completely ignoring my point of view.

That being said, I think they get totals on different issues. "Ms. Dole, you got 150 letters in support of your position on A and 45 letters in opposition." But you could do the same thing with an e-mail.

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Now, I was part of a local campaign to get the alcohol laws changed here in Ohio. We had a lobbyist that helped us make the greatest impact. She told us when to write letters, what to say, and who to write them to. I think it worked quite well to have letters flood into a lawmakers office the same week that we came knocking on their doors and asked to talk about the law. It took a year, but we got the law changed.

That's really cool. What law was it?

probably to make it legal to give alcohol to 14 year old girls

It used to be illegal to sell beer that had an alcohol by volume of more than 6%. We got that limit raised to 15%. We were shooting to eliminate the cap altogether, but the 15% cap only eliminates like 20 beers available in the United States, so we considered it a fair compromise.

Talk about an issue we all agree on, you cant get a decent beer in this country unless you brew it yourself. Bring your campaign to Florida.

Florida doesn't have a cap.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_la ... s_by_state

There is an active group in South Carolina though: http://www.popthecapsc.org/

Thats bullshit because you cannot find a beer over 5.9% for sale in Florida, I know I've looked.

Maybe because to count to six you need to use two hands.

I could be wrong. I know there are currently five states with a 6% or lower cap, and I could only find 3 on that list. I really didn't think Florida was one of those states. Maybe Florida sells >6% at liquor stores or something.

People from out of state look at me funny when I talk about going to the "state store" to buy booze. Now I know why.

In middle school I wrote to the whitehouse, but not to the president because I knew he wouldn't get it. I just thanked the mailroom staff for doing such a bang up job.

No my friend, even liquor stores only stock beer that is woefully inadaquete. I'm on my way to Germany. Peace.