Inevitably when fraud and corruption start being exposed, Congress wants to try to sweep it back under the rug. It's up to us not to allow them to do this.

Here are some great resources for contacting Congress:

A complete list of e-mails and fax numbers: http://www.conservativeusa.org/mega-cong....

A little program that will find your Senators & Representatives and give you background information on them and all of their contact information: http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/in....

An innovative new way to contact your Members of Congress via Twitter: http://2gov.org/

Quote:

Getting Involved Just Got Easier

@2gov is civic participation for the 21st Century. Once registered, simply include @2gov in tweets about issues that matter to you.

We take your tweet, match it to your specific officials, and send it to them in a professional report (even if they aren't on Twitter!)

And, if you're registered to vote, @2gov can make your message powerful by authenticating it came from a real voter in the real world.

http://2gov.org/

One-stop shopping and it's free. 'We are not Democrats or Republicans, we are Americans.'

If you have an android phone grab the free app called CONGRESS from the market... very useful.

Got a link?

Its not a link its on the market directly on the phone.

Ahh....I'm living in the dark ages. I thought I was cool when the phone I got had a keyboard.

Does anyone have any suggestions for getting Congressional Hearing material out of Congress? For instance, I know of some House hearings that were conducted, but they didn't send the transcript in to GPO. Those hearings are listed as having happened, but there is no record for them. Not every hearing gets C-SPAN coverage, and not every committee has archives available.

Additionally, does anyone have any way we can submit statements or questions on the record or find sympathetic Senators and Representatives who will? I have questions that I'd want to ask of Sheila Bair... however I have no idea how to ask them.

I recently called up a few Congressional committees and actually feel like they are willing to help citizens, but I don't have much experience in this area.

I guess I'll have to ask the obvious: have you contacted your Representative or Senator?

While I've never had your specific question, the thing that gets me the most information is to call a Representative's office - repeatedly if necessary - and ask for the 'legislative assistant.' In most cases, this is the person you really want to talk to. What you need to do is build up a relationship with that person. This takes a little time. Once you can get to the point that the LA understands you're not a nut, whenever you have questions or concerns, you take it to that person.

The LA's are really the ones that know the most about the legislation being written or considered. They know the hearing schedules and most of all, if they bring something to the Representative or Senator, it is taken seriously.

This also works very well if your Senator or Representative is an ass. For instance, my two Senators (Stabenow and Levin) are *******s. They don't give a **** about their constituents at all and they truly don't represent ANY of my views. However, Levin has a decent LA and at least I can take my concerns to him and know that at some point, my POV is expressed to Levin. Same thing with my Representative (who unfortunately barely missed being kicked out last week). Unfortunately, his LA is about as stupid as he is - but - he certainly can tell me information regarding various legislation.

Another thing you can do is use this process with Senators or Representatives on the committees you are trying to get through to. These Members of Congress must be open to discussing matters related to committee work from constituents outside their districts. Like, McCain's office MUST take calls or letters from me regarding military issues because he is on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Try to pick a Member of Congress that shares your particular point of view - I would not contact McCain's office about my concerns about the military, because he isn't sympathetic to my views. I instead, contact Senator Inhofe's office.

It shouldn't be this hard to get your concerns or questions answered, but unfortunately, it is.

I've written my Representative, but just got a canned response back. I called up the TARP COP committee phone number when they didn't have any hearings for awhile wondering what was up (basically it was committee member schedules). I called up another committee asking about hearing transcripts (like from 2 years ago) but have no idea how to get transcripts released from hearings. You'd think that every hearing would have a transcript but they don't, public hearing what?!

I've never tried my Senators since they don't agree with me... however it strikes me that quiet times when nothing is going on (which is like 90% of the time) are useful periods to get questions to the reps.

My representative is useless, never has any town halls and is a CA gerry-mandered position. I've never seen him speak passionately about anything on the House floor...

I have had success in mailing to congress-critterss by using a search engine with their name and "for congress." The campaign offices are easier to contact and leave messages. I can only assume the message may get through, but that doubt exists even if sent to DC. Usually a zip code from their district must be inserted in the screening form.