Ameritocracy

Congress, Communication, and Constituents

Julie over at the IPDI just posted some interesting statistics about the frequency, and quality, of response that constituents receive from congress. Highlights:

• 92% of Internet users who contact Congress through email, web forms, etc. want a response.
• Only 63% recall receiving a response.
• Almost half (46%) were dissatisfied with the response.
• More than half (64%) say the response did not address their concerns and that the response was too political biased.

It gets (a little) worse: only 39% of those who contacted Congress (and 36% of those who had not contacted Congress) thought the information they received from their Senators and Representatives was trustworthy.

Those numbers surprise me in a few ways - I actually expected the rates of dissatisfaction to be a little higher.  That the responses did not address constituents concerns or are too political is little better than no response and sometimes worse.  It seems really strange that 64% say the response did not address their concern, but just 46% were dissatisfied with the response.  I’ve not had a chance to read the report in more detail to see if there’s a reason those don’t align more.

But, these results confirm others we have seen, and simply our own experience: communicating with elected officials is a challenge (for both sides), and is rarely meaningful and effective.

Which, of course, means we disengage (if not breakup), just like we would any other relationship saddled by poor communication.

- Porter