Calling Your State Legislators

Who doesn’t hate phone calls?  I’m not talking about calling your Beloved Parent, or your old roommate, or whatever–people you’d like to catch up with, but can’t because of distance.  Those phone calls are often ok.  I’m talking about the other sorts of calls: Calls to organize meetings.  Calls to ask for favors.  Calls to do favors.  They’re all bad.

(We’ll pause here to reflect ruefully on the fact that I now spend all day on the phone: Union stuff often goes better on the phone, and then, now that it’s once again youth sports season, I call people I don’t know all night long.  “Don’t you want to register your kid? Coach?” Then there’s the parents on my team: “Don’t forget, practice is . . .”  If it weren’t for Phonevite, I’d be lost.  I thought that the iPhone would help, in that a device that’s fun to use would make me like phone calls better, but no.  Love the phone, but still hate the calls.)

But there are times when a phone call really is useful.  Last week, we hosted a breakfast with state legislators about budget issues and higher education.  Public higher education–already in a precarious situation–is about to get a lot worse, once the federal stimulus money runs out. (This is because the stimulus money came with strings that prevented states from cutting certain items.)  And so this is a very good time for faculty members to engage productively with their state’s political discourse.  (Following their students’ lead!)

I was *not* surprised to hear that higher education, like all government spending, is facing an organized attack.  I *was* surprised to hear the legislators say that one of the best things to do is to call.  Not e-mail or write a letter, but call. Often writing is good–but the anti-government/anti-public spending mood right now is so strong that calling is more direct. (One state rep even recommended calling people at home!)  Reminding your legislators that you are a constituent, and not just someone cashing your state’s checks, can be a helpful thing.

Some resources on talking with politicians:

• The EFF’s factsheet on contacting US policymakers
• Congress.org has a handy search tool that will get you contact information for every state and national politician who represents you
• The AAUP’s lobbying tools do a good job of introducing academics to practical politics.

(Update: Edited to add link to depressing Chronicle story about salaries.)

Image by Flickr user Fibonacci Blue / Creative Commons Licensed