By Roy Christman

“Contact your representative.” An interest group or newspaper columnist urges you to call or write about a pending piece of legislation. You wonder if it would really make a difference.

For a three-year period I worked as a field representative for a California state senator. The district was located in Santa Clara County, home of San Jose. At the time California had 43 U.S. representatives, 80 state assembly members, and 40 state senators. A state senate district, with roughly 800,000 people, had a slightly larger population than a congressional district. This was in the era of letters and phone calls, before Mark Zuckerberg was born.

One of the jobs of a field rep was to draft answers to constituent letters for the senator to approve and sign. I was mainly responsible for environmental and consumer issues. If the office received five letters on a bill, we were worried. If we received 20 letters on a piece of legislation, it was panic time. Twenty letters equaled one for every 40,000 people in the district.

Constituent letters were tallied, and some that made good points went into individual bill files. When those bills were up for a vote, the senator would review the letters. If he felt strongly about an issue, the letters probably wouldn’t change his mind, but if the legislation dealt with a routine matter, constituent opinion would often sway his vote.

Letters are better than phone calls or postcards. Emails are better than petitions. Petitions, if they are signed by real people, are better than online petitions. The rule is this: The more effort it takes to get your message to the legislator, the more she or he will take it seriously.

If today you receive a handwritten letter in an envelope with a 58-cent stamp from one friend and a five-line text from another friend, which one will you remember tonight? A letter is a physical thing. Someone in the legislative office must handle it, open it, at the very least throw it in the recycling bin. An email or text can be deleted with the click of a key.

Online petitions, even those with hundreds of names, are ineffective. It is so easy to add your name to an online petition. The petition will include people who signed because a friend asked them to or because they want to feel part of a group.

When you write, be polite. Don’t say, “If you support this bill, I will vote you out of office.” The response is likely to be, “Yeah, you and whose army?”

Write about one bill or one subject. Legislative staffers have trouble with laundry lists of requests. If you want to write about two issues - say fireworks and Sunday hunting - write two letters.

It is also important to give reasons for your position. This is why letters are better than postcards. In a letter you can thoughtfully explain your position. You can’t do that on a postcard.

Writing to legislators in other districts or other states is generally ineffective. If you aren’t a constituent you probably will be ignored.

It also helps if you live in a competitive district. A legislator from a district dominated by one party has little incentive to change an issue position.

Legislators from competitive districts will usually be more moderate. Partly as a result of gerrymandering, most districts in Pennsylvania are one-party districts.

Nonetheless, I’d urge you to write your legislator if you care about an issue. While letters may be better than emails and emails better than online petitions, doing something is better than doing nothing.

Roy Christman taught Political Science and American Studies at San José State University before his retirement. He lives in Towamensing Township.