PAPER NÚM. 20
(Papel nš20/Paper 20)


E-mail Overload in Congress
Managing a Communications Crisis

Kathy Goldschmidt
 Congressional Management Foundation

(...) Conclusion
The underlying American democratic value of communication between citizens and elected officials has its roots in the town hall meeting, where, for centuries, constituents have been coming together with their elected representatives to discuss the issues that most concern them. The people want to be heard, and elected officials want to listen and respond. Now technologies exist to do this without leaving home or office, and constituents are motivated to use them.

E-mail has the potential for a profound and positive impact on our democratic system. If effectively utilized, the public - including interest groups - could engage in a more open and informative dialogue with their elected officials, improving communication, and potentially reducing the cynicism and common misperceptions that currently weaken public confidence in government. It also offers Members of Congress the opportunity to find new ways to fulfill the Founders' dreams of a transparent, responsive, yet deliberative, Congress. Unfortunately, grassroots activists, the general public, and congressional offices all have misperceptions about how to effectively use e-mail that are limiting the value of this important communications tool.

Grassroots activists' practices of encouraging and enabling citizens to send messages to all Members of Congress are akin to flying any interested person in the country to attend a Member's town hall meeting. The public's expectation to receive responses from Members who do not represent them is like their showing up at the town hall meeting and demanding to be treated like a constituent. Members' inefficient and unresponsive e-mail practices are akin to keeping constituents waiting in long lines for hours before letting them into the town hall meeting. Instead of fostering democracy, these conflicting practices and expectations of all the parties are fostering cynicism and eroding trust. This predicament requires that grassroots activists, the public, and Congress all find new approaches to their online communications. The Congress Online Project recommends the following.

First, grassroots activists should adopt a code of conduct to engage in electronic lobbying practices that:

  • Target individuals' own Members of Congress - and only their own Members of Congress;
  • Send meaningful messages, not "electronic postcards;"
  • Avoid sending duplicate messages from the same person;
  • Encourage people to speak in their own words;
  • Does not foster the expectation that citizens should correspond with - and expect a response from - any Member of Congress with whom they choose to communicate; and
  • Provide complete identification information, including name, address, zip code, and e-mail address.

    Second, citizens must recognize that congressional offices are not, and cannot be, capable of responding electronically to every American and limit their e-mails to communicating with only their elected representatives. Due to the large and growing volumes of e-mail congressional offices are receiving, electronic communication should be confined to Member-constituent communications. Third, both the House and Senate should consider increasing the budgets of Hill offices to help them manage the demands of e-mail, or develop other means of providing these offices with the assistance they need to solve this problem.

    Fourth, congressional offices must expedite the transition to operating efficient and responsive e-mail systems. The dated practices offices are adhering to become less practical with each passing month, as greater numbers of Americans become "wired." Continuing to process incoming e-mail manually is a costly drain on office time and resources. Continuing to answer e-mail with paper fails to meet the timeliness and responsiveness constituents expect. Continuing to cling to misconceptions about e-mail causes congressional offices to appear behind the times and resistant to change.

    In this congressional e-mail standoff, there are no winners, only losers. The interests of no party - congressional offices, constituents, the general public, and public interest groups - are being met. Electronic communication has the potential to strengthen our democracy. It holds the promise of creating greater openness and a broader dialogue between Members of Congress and their constituents. To realize this potential, however, the public, activists, and Members of Congress must all become better users of the powerful tools they possess.

    (Conclusion of the report "E-mail Overload in Congress. Managing a Communications Crisis" written by the Congress Online Project, a partnership of the Congressional Management Foundation and George Washington University. To read the full text of the report, click here)


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