Spam: Laying Siege to the Fortress
"Open a Can of Congressional Mail."
The Washington Post had a good feature article today on the Congressional Management Foundation survey that Phil posted online.
The rise of e-mail to Congress has tripled from 2000-2004. Unfortunately, only 17 percent of House members and 38 percent of Senators can actually respond to e-mail messages electronically. Most members prefer to print out letters and send them snail mail because they are worried that their e-mails can be tampered with or edited.
According to the article, Congress has been seen as a "fortress" for years and outside groups were unable to gain access. They are quickly learning that e-mail is a way inside Congress, and they continue to hammer Congress with e-mails from their lists. To combat the additional spam e-mails, many Congressional offices change their webforms so that spam bounces back. The third parties remain a step ahead by closely monitor Congressional webforms to adapt to the changes.
What these groups fail to realize is that they might just kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
Many Congressional offices are getting frustrated with form letters and junk e-mail. They are hiring vendors to sort out their third party e-mail and blocking some of the spam. While the rise of constituent mail has increased, most Congressional offices cannot afford to add staff members to answer mail.
This means that third party mail is clogging inboxes, delaying time from constituents who really need help. It would not be surprising if Congressmen declined to answer form letters from constituents. After all, why should a staff member put an hour into a letter when it took the constituent 2 seconds to click a button? And in some cases, many of the constituents do not even realize that they sent the Congress member a letter. This revelantion comes much to the frustration of junior level Hill staffers that are already underpaid and overworked.
And, as a Hill staffer was quoted: "[Third Party Mail is] a waste of time and resources and does not influence the members' stance on the issue in any way."
If Congress is indeed an impenetrable fortress, you can't blame them for trying.
3 Comments:
As a fellow LC, I would like to echo the comments made by Jorge.
The increased use of form letters via the internet has letter writing into a political art. Now, letters have turned into policy statements because interest groups in Washington attempt to pin down a Senator or House member by what they wrote in a letter. All of this has made state and district offices more important than ever since they actually have real contact with the voters.
I don't anticipate any change to the way mail is answered on the hill but something should be done to identify letters that were honestly written.
I can't imagine sending my Senator an email and getting a letter back, I mean really, come on!!!
Regardless of how someone within the electorate chooses to contact their representative, the response should be in the same medium.
For instance, if someone calls and leaves a message, then they should get a call back from someone in the legislator's office.
I don't think it's a matter of good or bad politics; it's simple respect.
Although I don't necessarily disagree that it would be ideal if one phone call was returned with another its more a matter of practicality and efficency.
During the debate on a controversial issue, a Senate office could receive 200-300 phone calls in one day. It is just impratical to have each one of these calls returned by another member of the Senator's staff.
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