Existentialism and math around your potential political impact
Multiplying your impact (and also some dating advice?)
AUG 18, 2023
During my panel the other day on "What would it take to complete the High-Speed Rail in 5 years?" I encouraged people to call their elected officials demanding increased funding for the project & cutting red tape. One of the people in the chat made a classic statement in response- "I just don't think me making a call would make an impact." The statement speaks to a deep question, "does what I do matter?" and I wanted to answer that question head on.
Yes, what you do matters. Both politically and beyond.
~Fin~
If you’d like a longer answer, which includes a little talk about dating and some math, then please read on!
1) Your call to an elected official counts– literally! Any call, letter, or email you send to an elected official counts. It literally gets counted. Elected officials’ staffers make notes of how many calls, emails, letters, etc they get each day on various issues. They note whether the caller is for or against the topic, whether it’s about a specific bill to vote on, and whether or not the caller lives or works in the district. Each elected official handles that process differently and it can vary a lot depending on if they are elected to local, state or federal office. But they are listening and taking note. It might look like a big tally sheet that the intern gives to the Legislative Director that says, “X number of calls in favor of bill ABC and Y calls against.” Or it might look like a city hall staffer telling their councilmember, “hey, heads up, we’re getting a LOT of calls about XYZ today.” Or even a simple “ugh, the XYZ folks are at it again calling about ABC.”
So yes– it’s literally getting counted or noted in some way. It also matters how you reach out. In the past, I’ve been told by some folks who worked in the US Capitol that some Congressional offices would literally have formulas like “1 office visit is worth W mailed in letters. 1 letter is worth X calls, 1 call is worth Y unique emails, 1 unique email is worth Z petition signatures.” I’d wager that most elected officials don’t have it so formulaic, but the principal has remained. Votes from outside the district almost never count though– if you’re not in their district, you’re someone else’s responsibility (the exceptions and work arounds to that are things for a future post!)
The type of action matters because it’s a sign of intensity. It’s harder to write a letter, put it in an envelope, stamp and mail it than it is to sign an online petition. If a person takes that extra effort, it shows they care that much more. That helps them stand out from the regular noise. It’s the difference between starting an online dating conversation with “hey” vs. actually reading the profile of the person and responding with something thoughtful that demonstrates you’ve read it and helps bridge a connection between you both. If you want someone to care about what you care about, it’s helpful if you show them how deeply that you care about it—and show them in a way that they are open to receiving.
2) Why elected officials keep count of calls. Elected officials want to represent who they view as “their” constituents, they generally want to get re-elected, and they want to advance the issues they care a lot about. This usually works in sync: if your mayor got elected in a landslide with a lot of support from the business community, they probably care about that community a lot and want to do stuff that makes them happy. That will also help strengthen support from that community, helping them win the next election too. So, they are going to be paying close attention to messages from that community and messages around those issues.
And real-life elections are really complicated things with dozens and dozens of different special interests and community groups vying for attention and making demands. A candidate needs to cobble together support from a variety of interests to win, which means they want to keep their finger on the pulse of what’s going on in their diverse political community. If they aren’t keeping up to date, then they can miss out on some change or new wedge issue that an upstart can use to unseat them. Or the elected official can miss out on spotting a way to make “their” constituents happy and make themselves even more secure in their position. It’s good to know what’s out there and make informed decisions with that information.
3) What they do with that information. As I said in the post on lobbying, it’s one thing to be heard, it’s another thing to be listened to. Politicians win elections by assembling a winning coalition of supporters. If you are part of what they think is their winning hand, then they are going to be more interested in what you have to say. For example, if they think you are a swing voter who swung their way because of their stance on a certain issue– they are going to be very interested in what you have to say about that issue!
On the other hand, if they think they have cobbled together a winning hand for re-election… and it doesn’t involve you– you’re going to have a hard time. Particularly if what you want is the opposite of what their core supporters want. In which case, on that issue, they’ll probably tune you out entirely, and instead just listen to “their” constituents.
Of course, a politician can think they have assembled a winning hand but have misread the situation. A political miscalculation like that can lead to getting crushed by a smart & hardworking challenger. That’s how you get things like the fourth most powerful Democrat in the House outspending his 28-year-old challenger 5 to 1 and still losing.
If the elected official eked out a victory, an upstart could mount a credible election challenge and force them to actually campaign for re-election. Having to actually campaign for re-election is at a minimum– very annoying, time consuming and costly. A common goal is to build enough political strength that it scares away any real challenger. That means delivering on your promises to your supporters (which intensifies their support) and winning over new supporters by delivering on their issues. Keeping an eye on outreach from constituents is a way to help evaluate which constituencies would make potentially good additions to their “winning hand.”
4) What you can do with this information. For an advocate who is passionate on a “niche” issue (like bike lanes, transit, or street safety) that means you have an opportunity to have your issue get picked up if the elected official thinks you can shift the balance of power enough.
You might think “oh I’m on Team X and my elected official is on Team Y, they don’t care about me,” but the world isn’t binary, even in a two-party system. That binary breaks down a lot more the closer you get to local politics–which is where a lot of transportation policy gets made. Even on the federal level, a lot of issues don’t fit the false red vs. blue binary. Transit fits a little bit into that false binary since denser transit-friendly areas are bluer than car-dependent areas– but overall American politicians of either party aren’t particularly attuned to transit or bikes or street safety. That can be frustrating, but it also means we get to define & shape the issue to make a nice wedge, aim it, and apply a lot of political power to push it through.
5) Let’s do some math. Ok, so your 2-minute call counts- yay. But 1 call doesn’t mean much. You can grow your impact by writing a letter or trying to meet the elected official or one of their staff in person to chat (aka lobbying).
You can do that and/or spend 30 minutes texting & calling through your friends to ask them to call your rep. Give them the phone number to call, and a line or two to say and you can probably get at least another 5 people to make the call. Now you’ve gotten 6 calls in a little over half an hour. Want more? Post that info on social media and depending on the issue you’ll get at a minimum another few calls in. Now you’re to 10 with about 45 minutes of effort. 10x impact in 45 minutes is a good time investment for just getting started.
Write your demand into a petition (or find an existing group working on that demand!), email it around, post the link in a few relevant groups and you can get to a few dozen signers, set it up so when they sign, they’re invited to share the petition and you’ll get a few more too. Now you’ve logged about 4 hours (doesn’t have to be consecutively!) and have multiplied your impact 100 times over.
From there, your options for ways to increase your impact grow substantially. You could flyer, you could recruit signers to help you flyer, you could bring a group to an event where the elected official is going to be, you could make a coalition letter, and lots more things that help you generate hundreds if not thousands of more calls to your elected official.
6) In other words. A Republican who won a County Supervisor seat in Kentucky with a 20-point margin of victory with support from Christian Conservative groups is NOT going to be swayed to change their stance on a major issue of theirs just because they got a few calls from advocates in their district. But they could be open to supporting protected bike lanes that create safe routes from schools to churches. And if you get 100 people to make that call, it’ll get noticed. If you call around to church leaders asking them to sign on to a letter supporting that idea so kids can get to church easier, you’ll significantly expand your impact. Same goes for if you get the parent association with the school on board.
To win what you want, aim well and get a few hundred calls into your decision maker. Make one of those calls yourself, and then make a hundred more calls (or emails!) to your fellow community-members and get them to take action. You matter and you can win if you take the right actions to multiply your impact.
Interested in improving your skills and strategies for winning bike, transit, or pedestrian safety improvements in your community? Let’s talk. Email me at Carter@carterlavin.com