With major bills like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act making their way through Congress, you might find yourself wondering if you should send something more personal. We'll guide you through finding the correct representative and writing a letter to them that might actually get read.


Photo by Bernard Pollack.

Many larger bills, like the previously mentioned SOPA, end up with a website dedicated to contacting your representatives, but not all bills get that kind of attention. You might feel passionate about a major bill that you'd rather send a personal letter instead of a form letter, so we'll outline the best way to outline and send off your letter so it gets noticed and read. After all, if a bill passes or fails, it's going to change your life in some way.


How to Find Your Representatives

This is the easy part, if you're looking to find out how to contact your representative, you can visit the official House of Representatives website and enter your state and zip code. Alternately, you can visit Contacting the Congress to get phone numbers, email addresses and web forms for all your state representatives. For the House of Representatives, make sure you're communicating with the correct representative from your district. This is decided by your zip code and area, so you need to punch that information to either of the two databases to get the right person.

If your complaint is a little more focused than a national or statewide bill currently being considered, you can also contact more localized representatives. You'll find contact information for your Mayor, Governor, Secretary of State, judges, school boards, and lower level officials on your state's website (usually yourstate.gov). This can be a good place to start if you're looking to get a bill made or a local concern addressed. Lower level officials are also more likely to respond and treat your request with more urgency. Different states have different forms of contact, so there's no sure-fire way to suggest how to get in contact with the right person, but your state's website is a good starting place for the research. If you're struggling, you can always email or call an office in hopes of getting a suggestion for the right person to talk to.


You can also find contact information for the support branches, like the Federal Legislative Branch on USA.gov. This can be handy if you want to cover your bases by contacting multiple types of representatives or if you're seeking help on a particular issue localized to a government office. For instance, it wouldn't hurt to send a letter to the Copyright Office along with your representative about SOPA. It's not direct action, but it makes sure the offices that support the legislators are getting the same message from the people.

How to Write a Letter of Support or Opposition


You should treat a letter to your representative like a more pointed cover letter for a job. In doing so, you rule out the "no's" associated with angry letters (swearing, rage, factual errors), but retain the good points. To start, be careful with how you address it. Title's are important here, so if you're writing a letter to a Senator or representative, use the title Honorable (The Honorable Al Franken), otherwise, you can address who you're writing to by their job title.

Like a good cover letter, you want to say want you need to say in about three or four paragraphs, and keep the entire thing under a page. The structure is similar too, you start by identifying yourself and your experience, then move on to providing the details of why you oppose or support the bill before closing with you solution.


Make sure you have completed your research on the subject and you understand it well enough to talk about it. You also want to write as clearly and cleanly as possible. This is especially the case if you're talking about a local issue. Use street addresses or official park names if you're dealing with an issue in your neighborhood.

Be informed about the representative you're writing to as well. Knowing their voting history might give you the type of evidence you need to make an impact. The Washington Post has an excellent voting history database that will show you how they've voted about similar issues in the past.


Speaking with secretaries at several state offices, all of them recommended keeping the letters as short as possible. While you may feel a long winded letter is best to explain your reasoning, you have to remember that most representatives know all of facets of a bill, so concentrate on the ways it will affect you they may not have thought of. Include details like:

The area you live in.

Your personal experience and history with the issue. If you have credentials, include those as well.

Studies and newspaper articles from local sources.

Your fears if the bill does or does not get passed.

Your recommended course of action.

Finally, close the letter with a quick "thank you," and send it off. If it's an issue you're passionate about, it's never a bad idea to sit on your email or letter for a day or two in order to sort your thoughts out. You want to come off as passionate and informed, but not too passionate.


Photo by Bernard Pollack.

Have you ever written a letter to a representative and seen change? Share any tricks you've used in the comments.