Contacting your legislator? Cite your sources – if you need them to hearken to you

Suppose you have got a problem you’re actually enthusiastic about – taxes, gun management or another necessary coverage. You wish to do greater than vent on social media, so that you determine to jot down an electronic mail, place a telephone name and even draft a letter to your state legislator expressing your views.

As a citizen, I’d reward your sense of civic duty and willingness to precise your opinion. As a scholar, I’d encourage your efforts – they’re extra consequential than many individuals notice.

I train communication and public coverage at Michigan State College and research how constitutents’ communication with lawmakers impacts public coverage selections.

In my earlier analysis, I analyzed – with their permission – the efforts of coalitions working to get residents to contact their lawmakers in help of main laws in New Hampshire and Michigan. I carried out a rigorous analysis of the forms of contact constituents made, the messages they conveyed and the conduct of lawmakers each earlier than and after receiving these communications.

The outcomes confirmed that communications from constituents can have a big affect on how legislators vote. For instance, emails from constituents encouraging policymakers to help smoke-free office payments in New Hampshire elevated state legislators’ help on vital votes by an estimated 20 share factors – a considerable impact.

However lots of people don’t hassle to contact their elected officers, pondering it’s not value speaking with them.

In as we speak’s polarized political surroundings, is it attainable to get by way of to policymakers from the opposite facet?

Discounting opposing views

Some work, together with my very own talked about above, means that policymakers are attentive to communications from the general public. However analysis has additionally proven that policymakers interact in what’s known as biased reasoning, writing off communications from constituents who don’t share their coverage views.

For example, political scientists Daniel Butler and Adam Dynes requested state and native policymakers in two on-line surveys to guage a hypothetical communication from a constituent. Policymakers have been randomly assigned to guage a letter that both supported or opposed a controversial coverage after which rated the hypothetical author letter on varied traits.

The authors discovered that policymakers rated hypothetical constituents who disagreed with them as much less educated in regards to the subject. This discounting of constituents who disagree on coverage might clarify why policymakers are inclined to have biased perceptions of public opinion, believing the general public’s attitudes to be extra according to their very own positions than polling suggests.

Is there a option to stop lawmakers from writing off constituents’ views?

Do your analysis

In current work with political communication students Hillary Shulman and Dustin Carnahan, I sought to develop methods to restrict policymakers’ discounting of constituents’ opinions.

We requested a nationwide pattern of elected native policymakers – amongst them metropolis council members – to guage a hypothetical electronic mail author randomly assigned to precise help or opposition to elevating the minimal wage. The survey was fielded by Civic Pulse, which focuses on samples of elected officers.

This research was much like the Butler and Dynes research described above. However we added two randomly assigned situations – what we known as a “learn” situation through which the author expressed having “learn loads about” the subject, with none particular element, or a “cite” situation through which the author summarized and cited a research supporting their place.

We anticipated, based mostly on analysis on biased reasoning, that offering clear proof that the constituent is educated in regards to the subject would stop biased discounting of constituent opinion.

Policymakers in our research have been requested to guage to what extent they thought that the constituent understood the difficulty, was consultant of the neighborhood, and was honest and held their place strongly, and whether or not they thought the communication was a type letter relatively than a constituent-intitiated communication – and due to this fact presumably extra prone to be written off.

How you can not be written off

The outcomes confirmed earlier findings that policymakers certainly low cost the opinions of constituents with whom they disagree. When policymakers learn an electronic mail expressing an opinion that differed from their very own on elevating the minimal wage, the e-mail author was rated decrease throughout all 5 dimensions.

Nevertheless, if the e-mail author offered proof that they knew in regards to the subject – citing analysis supporting their place – policymakers have been extra prone to understand that the e-mail author understood the difficulty. The consequences of citing proof are stronger than merely stating that one has learn in regards to the subject.

My very own work suggests {that a} constituent expressing an opinion to an elected official can affect the official’s vote on the difficulty. However simply writing to an official isn’t any assure that the constituent will persuade the official or have the difficulty resolved in the way in which they like.

Our research is necessary in figuring out a approach constituents can keep away from being written off.

We additionally discovered that there aren’t any downsides to offering proof supporting one’s place.

You would possibly anticipate that when supplied with unambiguous proof {that a} disagreeing constituent understands the difficulty, policymakers would possibly direct their efforts to discounting different constituent traits, score the constituent as much less honest or much less consultant of the neighborhood.

We didn’t discover any proof that this occurred. When confronted with proof that their constituent is aware of the difficulty effectively, policymakers are much less prone to low cost their opinions.

How you can be heard

The sensible outcomes are clear: When speaking with a policymaker, particularly one with whom you disagree, you wish to cease them from discounting your opinion. A method to do that is by citing high quality proof to help your place.

Whereas this recommendation appears easy, it didn’t seem in guides we surveyed created by citizen teams just like the Sierra Membership, ACLU or Christian Coalition.

When contacting a policymaker about a problem, bear in mind that they could low cost your opinion in the event that they disagree.

However observe additionally that fastidiously crafted communications can convey your place with out being written off – and will enhance how precisely the policymaker understands public attitudes about public insurance policies.