A Political Act of Passion-Pointless?
Fifty people crammed around tables at the Hartland Public Library one night and sat in silence, at times, to their pens scribbling on postcards.
They asked for change. They asked for help.
“Make it look real!” Carol Stedman shouted as she snapped a photo for her Twitter feed. “We don’t want ‘him’ to say ‘fake news.’”
The ‘him’ Stedman to whom Stedman referred was President Donald Trump.
This group, under Stedman’s direction, has been trying to get Trump’s attention for months. They are distraught by Trump’s policies and practices and need elected officials to know it.
They meet once a week to write postcards to members of congress while Stedman posts her frustration to Twitter everyday.
Stedman has posted 2,000 times since she joined Twitter the week after Trump was elected. This is the social media platform Trump uses to communicate most.
Stedman tweets as if Trump will see it, even though she has just 39 followers. The president is not one of them.
Stedman spends five hours everyday contacting members. She calls them, emails them and writes them postcards.
About 200 people--almost a tenth of Hartland’s population--have joined her.
They write about Trump’s tax returns, about the end of Democracy, about human rights and budget cuts. They write to Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas. They write to Republicans. They write to Democrats. They write to Trump.
Like so many, this group is resisting the Trump administration the only way they know how--by contacting those in charge of making a difference. They write to the most powerful people in the House and Senate.
Stedman, like the others, is determined to make her “quiet” voice from a small town heard.
But will it be?
Stedman writes to people she can’t vote for.
On March 16, Stedman contacted Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Mark Sanford (R-SC)--two Republicans who joined Democrats in demanding Trump’s tax returns--two Republicans who don’t represent Stedman.
Stedman didn’t hear back.
This is, perhaps, not surprising.
Each legislative office has its own system, but all calls, emails and letters are generally treated the same. The issues raised are counted and tallied and logged into a computer system. Non-constituent correspondence is placed in a separate pile, where it’s generally not responded to.
Rep. Sanford re-routes correspondence from non-constituents to the appropriate House or Senate member, according to a spokesperson.
Others do the same.
Rep. Brady, chair or the House Ways and Means Committee, mentions his policy for handling mail on his website: “Due to the large volume of U.S. Mail, email, phone calls and faxes I receive, I am only able to accept messages from residents of the 8th Congressional District of Texas.”
This presents a dilemma for those like Stedman who have made contacting members of congress a part-time job. Stedman has done just about everything to make her thoughts count.
Stedman is joined by thousands who are attuned to politics like never before, some in fear for the country and for the unknown, from the proposed budget, which would shift the availability of federal programs, to the future of health care, to Trump’s ties with Russia.
This is a time when everything Trump has proposed feels like an “attack,” said Stedman--an “attack” on students, on the sick, elderly and poor, on rural states like Vermont, on the environment, and an “attack on goodness and beauty.”
This is a time of passion and rage. On Wednesday morning, a gunman, apparently distraught in the wake of Trump’s presidency, shot four people, including Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA). Scalise, a powerful member of the House, was in critical condition following surgery, according to reports.
This is a time when congress is seeing “historic amounts” of communication, said Brad Fitch, president and CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF), a nonpartisan, nonprofit dedicated to helping members of congress improve management practices.
Many people are doing just what Stedman is--contacting the officials with the most influence.
On March 28, one of Stedman’s own legislators, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), a ranking official, received 381 calls about the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. More than half those calls were from non-constituents, said spokesperson David Carle. Leahy didn’t return those calls, said Carle.
The amount of outside correspondence has become a management issue for some.
“It’s put a strain on (us), because you want to be responsive but at the same time you have people who are not your constituents (calling),” said a spokesperson for Sanford’s office.
Both House and Senate have ethics rules that say members should focus resources on those they represent.
A House member’s duty, by statute, is to serve “with respect to the district from which the Member is elected.”
So, is Stedman, like others, just wasting their time? Fitch, of the CMF, suggested they could be.
“Members of congress are not obligated (to respond to non-constituents), and shouldn’t be,” said Fitch. “That’s just the way our representative democracy is set up.”
Depending on the office and the message, the route to contacting a member of congress can look like a game of telephone. The route can be blocked by several intermediaries. The first block is the office staff that read and listen to concerns and in some cases decide which is most important to then give to the elected official who then decides to alert another elected official of the concern.
Physical mail adds another complexity. All postcards and letters to the Capitol are rerouted to an offsite facility to be sorted for harmful substances found in bombs and anthrax. House members receive digitized copies of the mail through an outside company. Senate mail is sorted, bundled and delivered by Sergeant at Arms staff, often multiple times a day. The time takes at least 1-2 weeks.
The system makes sense, says Kris Miler, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, who has done research on the psychological effect of contacting members of congress.
Legislators are “bound to represent their district--their focus is on the people they represent,” Miler said. “Undoubtedly, it’s frustrating some citizens these days.”
Stedman is represented by three people in Washington, D.C., and Stedman contacts them too. They reply back within a week, but they--Sen. Patrick Leahy, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch--are already doing what they can to resist Trump.
For Stedman, it’s not enough.
“For Carol, it’s a difficult situation,” said Rep. John Bartholomew, Stedman’s hometown representative (a Democrat) who has also heard from Stedman and met with her twice. “She’s asked for advice but I’m kinda like, ‘well I don’t know.’”
But Stedman keeps calling. Stedman’s life changed the night Trump was elected.
The tall woman, who’s normally upbeat and high-energy, spent days under her bed covers.
This is the end of Democracy, she thought.
Did I not do enough? she wondered.
Stedman, the owner of Clay Hill Corners, an eight-acre organic vegetable and blueberry farm off a dirt road, never gave politics or the news much thought. Now both are part of her gardening chores.
These days, Stedman wakes up at 5 a.m. and rushes to her computer, where plants hang from the ceiling. She reads dozens of news pages, scans Twitter and plays MSNBC in the background. Stedman spends half the day, everyday, at this desk, which overlooks a field of 680 blueberry bushes. She writes postcards to congressmen and congresswoman. She asks for change. She asks for help. She runs out the door to pull some weeds. She goes to bed and starts again.
She has energized residents of her town and nearby towns to do the same.
Stedman has an email list of close to 200 followers. She emails them everyday, giving them topics to write about and legislators to contact. Once a week, they sit together at the Hartland Public Library and they write postcards together.
Stedman provides postcards, already stamped and ready to mail. She brings dozens of issues to write about, typed and printed on handout sheets. She identifies the House or Senate member with the greatest influence and brings their mailing addresses on pre-printed labels.
Stedman gets donations totaling about $50 a week to buy more supplies.
The 100 Days of Political Action, the national movement to resist Trump’s first 100 days in office, is over, but Stedman isn’t letting up. She has named her routine “Positive Political Actions.” Among so much negativity, the word, “positive,” is important to her.
She boldly marches forward.
“You choose--either sit and weep, or get on the phone, email, write to your senators and representatives about your outrage,” Stedman wrote to her followers one day.
“March. Organize. Resist. Do it now. Do it every day,” she wrote.
Many appear to be resisting, whether it’s through calling their own members of congress or somebody else's’
In the two months following Inauguration Day, Sen. Leahy received 31,358 emails from constituents, said Carle. That’s an uptick of about 600 percent from last year and the year before. His physical mail (1,620 pieces) tripled in that time period.
Rep. Ann Kuster (D-NH-2) saw ten times more phone calls, and nearly four times more emails and letters this over last year, her office staff said. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)’s correspondence doubled, while Sanford’s mail volume was up 40 percent.
National organizations, like People for the American Way, call on congress often.
“Calling reminds elected officials that constituents care about a particular issue,” said Diallo Brooks, the director of outreach and partner engagement at People For the American Way.
Research shows legislators value input from their constituents.
In a 2011 survey, 95 percent of House members ranked staying in touch with constituents as “very” important to their jobs, according to the CMF.
Sen. Leahy has used correspondence in speeches.
In a March speech, Leahy quoted more than a dozen letters from Rutland High School students--some of whom launched a New Neighbor’s Club to welcome refugees to their school.
“I have heard from hundreds of Vermonters outraged by President Trump’s executive actions to close our borders to those seeking refuge,” Leahy said in his speech.
Nick Brown, a spokesperson for Rep. Kuster, said input from those in Kuster’s district “is critical to informing her work in Congress.”
The CMF hasn’t researched non-constituent impact on members of congress.
Ellen Buchman, the executive vice president of communication at the Human Rights Campaign, says to contact your own legislator first, but she doesn’t see harm in contacting others.
“I think it’s an admission that know they’re being watched, not just by their constituents,” said Buchman.
Buchman also suggested having a friend or relative from another state communicating an important message.
Stedman acknowledged the likelihood of her postcards being read is slim, but she thought maybe the route to calling an elected official could be more direct on Twitter.
Stedman tweets multiple times a day, noting her frustration and emphasizing her resistance. Stedman tweets for Trump, even though she doesn’t follow Trump on Twitter and Trump doesn’t follow her.
On Twitter, it feels like her political acts of passion are part of something that could make a difference.
For some, the act of doing something to resist Trump everyday is enough.
On Saint Patrick’s Day, about 50 people sat at the Hartland Public Library and spent two hours writing down their concerns for the country, with Stedman leading the way.
They wrote instead of celebrating the holiday.
They wrote because it felt like it was the only thing they had left.
“This is the only voice I have besides my vote,” said Toni Vendetti,72.
Vendetti wrote six postcards and kept going, filling the white empty spaces with, “Everything from 'thank-you for the good work' to 'we don’t like this,’” she said.
She wrote to Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH).
“He needs to know I’m against ‘the wall,’” Vendetti said.
Gina Volpe, 23, wrote about climate change and health care. She acknowledged Stedman’s movement was small, but as she sat there, writing postcards with a group of friends, it felt big, like perhaps her voice was more powerful in writing.
“If activities like this can inspire other communities to get together…it’s going to set the foundation for the rest of the country,” said Volpe.
For Stedman, it felt like this was enough.
Stedman sat at her desk back at home one day, where ducks quack out her doorway, where two yellow dogs wag their tails back and forth and where plants surround her. She had her hands wrapped around a mug of tea and she reflected on her little movement in her tiny town.
“Who knows?” Stedman said. “We might change the world.”