Do petitions to elected officials work?

 My email inbox is often filled with requests for donations to social and environmental organizations, probably because I’ve been a member of several and my email address was shared or stolen. In addition to outright requests, I often get asked to sign a petition or contact one or more of my elected representatives, often with a suggestion to add a personal note.

I’ve been watching more and more of my elected representatives send automated acknowledgements of receipt of an electronic communication and, occasionally, actually receive several days later, a substantive response along the lines of “I’ll keep your concerns in mind should I have to vote on this matter.” 

I Voted

Photo by J. Harrington

One of the reasons I raise these points, in addition to a growing level of personal cynicism, is it’s unclear to me how our democracy actually works or can work these days. I can’t stand 99.9% of Republicans. The Democratic Party seems to be more and more urban oriented and less and less competent and/or liberal over the years. A recent example of the consequences of such focus is Analysis: In Face of National Apathy, Local Groups Lead Rural Democratic Efforts. Closer to home there’s Can the DFL reconnect with rural Minnesotans? and 'Can't lose any more ground': Democrats try to slow red wave in rural Minnesota.

My concerns are compounded by an apparent decline in functional literacy and critical thinking skills among adults. If someone needs to have a ballot read to them, are they really qualified to cast an informed vote in an election? Declines in literacy and critical thinking skills could go far to explain the current state of our government. (Aided and abetted by greed and malice at the oligarch and corporate level.)

So, since we are supposedly living in a representative republic claiming to be a democracy, where, thanks to Citizens United we’re becoming a corporatocracy and/or oligarchy or autocracy, how do we turn around the fact that ordinary individuals have less and less influence on the systems governing US and too many of US are less and less qualified to exert what little influence we have? Should we sign a petition? To whom would we send it? The best Congress Dark Money can buy?

Democracy

By Dorianne Laux

When you’re cold—November, the streets icy and everyone you pass

homeless, Goodwill coats and Hefty bags torn up to make ponchos—

someone is always at the pay phone, hunched over the receiver

spewing winter’s germs, swollen lipped, face chapped, making the last

tired connection of the day. You keep walking to keep the cold

at bay, too cold to wait for the bus, too depressing the thought

of entering that blue light, the chilled eyes watching you decide

which seat to take: the man with one leg, his crutches bumping

the smudged window glass, the woman with her purse clutched

to her breasts like a dead child, the boy, pimpled, morose, his head

shorn, a swastika carved into the stubble, staring you down.

So you walk into the cold you know: the wind, indifferent blade,

familiar, the gold leaves heaped along the gutters. You have

a home, a house with gas heat, a toilet that flushes. You have

a credit card, cash. You could take a taxi if one would show up.

You can feel it now: why people become Republicans: Get that dog

off the street. Remove that spit and graffiti. Arrest those people huddled

on the steps of the church. If it weren’t for them you could believe in god,

in freedom, the bus would appear and open its doors, the driver dressed

in his tan uniform, pants legs creased, dapper hat: Hello Miss, watch

your step now. But you’re not a Republican. You’re only tired, hungry,

you want out of the cold. So you give up, walk back, step into line behind

the grubby vet who hides a bag of wine under his pea coat, holds out

his grimy 85 cents, takes each step slow as he pleases, releases his coins

into the box and waits as they chink down the chute, stakes out a seat

in the back and eases his body into the stained vinyl to dream

as the chips of shrapnel in his knee warm up and his good leg

flops into the aisle. And you’ll doze off, too, in a while, next to the girl

who can’t sit still, who listens to her Walkman and taps her boots

to a rhythm you can’t hear, but you can see it—when she bops

her head and her hands do a jive in the air—you can feel it

as the bus rolls on, stopping at each red light in a long wheeze,

jerking and idling, rumbling up and lurching off again.

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