Congressional email: an intern's view

Needless to say, Congress could do much to improve its handling and use of constituent email. When I was a congressional intern last year, I got to spend many quality hours with our office constituent email system. Two necessary changes jumped out at me:

• Take advantage of the paperless nature of email
  At our office, we printed out every email that came into the office through the constituent feedback form on the website and distributed the paper copy with the rest of the regular mail. The mail database system was set up in such a way that emails could be automatically filed electronically, but no, each one was printed out on paper and handed to an LA.


• Answer an email with an email
  These days, email is an acceptible way of communicating a message, even a formal one. A representative obviously shouldn't respond to a handwritten letter with an email; he would seem as if he couldn't take the time to make a proper reply to a letter. But it is perfectly polite to respond to an email with another email. At the office I worked in, however, we responded to every communication, even email, with an actual physical letter. We could have save a lot of time and money not printing, folding, sealing, and mailing a response to all of the emails that our office received. As email has become a common way of communicating, congressional offices should use the effeciency email provides to communicate with their constituents.