Click on your state on the map or on your postal code abbreviation in the alphabetical list below. You’ll then see the names, pictures, fax numbers, phone numbers and e-mail addresses for all of the members of the U.S. Congress in your state.
| AL | AK | AZ | AR | CA | CO | CT | DE | FL | GA |
| HI | ID | IL | IN | IA | KS | KY | LA | ME | MD |
| MA | MI | MN | MS | MO | MT | NE | NV | NH | NJ |
| NM | NY | NC | ND | OH | OK | OR | PA | RI | SC |
| SD | TN | TX | UT | VT | VA | WA | WV | WI | WY |
5 Sample Templates for Contacting Your Representatives
- Sample Letter #1: Personal Credentials | Re: H.R. 5 the Student Success Act
- Sample Letter #2: Personal Interest with Counter-Arguments & Proposed Solution | Re: H.R. 717 Restoration of America’s Wire Act
- Sample Letter #3: Personal Story with Bulleted Data | S. 746 Accelerating the End of Breast Cancer Act of 2015
- Sample Letter #4: A Hypothetical Scenario or Bill | Re: Any Bills that Enact Further Gun Control Regulations
- Sample Letter #5: A Thank You Letter | Re: H. Res. 109 Condemning Iran for Persecution
Fax Numbers to Congress
Table of Contents
We hope this map provides a much easier way to find and contact your representatives so you can play a vitally important role in the law-making process.
Guidelines and Tips for Contacting Congress
Why Fax Your Representatives?
Faxing seems so outdated, so why do we recommend it?
There are problems with every other form of contact. E-mails are the easiest way to go, so they flood congressional inboxes 24/7. Your e-mail could easily be overlooked or quickly forgotten. Once your e-mail is bumped off the top of the first page, it’s quickly “out of sight, out of mind.” The staffer or congressman may never even get past the subject line. (If you do decide to e-mail, keep in mind that the best time to send an e-mail is Thursday between 8 and 9 a.m. The worst time to send an e-mail is Tuesday and Wednesday from 8 to 10 a.m.)
Phone calls are another popular option, but there’s no real record of your statement for your congressman to see. Phone calls are answered by assistants, often temporary college interns, who won’t be able to write down every thought or argument you make. Instead, they’re usually advised to simply keep a tally of the “For” and “Against” phone calls.
Sending a letter through “snail mail” is still fairly common, but letters can take a long time to arrive at the right office. Letters by mail can spend weeks in a universal receiving department being carefully screened and sorted. By then, it could be too late for your voice to make a difference. Even if it arrives before the vote, your congressman likely won’t see the letter directly because of the threat of anthrax and other deadly contaminants.
Faxes, on the other hand, solve all of these problems. They are as instantaneous as an e-mail without the same popularity and non-hard copy format that gets your message lost in the shuffle. You can write a fax in paragraph form so, unlike a phone call, you get across all of your thoughts. Also sending an email fax pose no security risk like snail mail, so your congressman can hold a hard copy of your letter to leave a more concrete impression. Check here to read our article on how to send a fax near you.
Know Who You’re Writing
You don’t always have to write your own representatives. There may be times where it’s worth writing a Congressperson or Senator from another district or state.
If you have issues that are very important to you, keep tabs on any Congressional action. Here you can find a list of every bill introduced in the House along with its current status. You can find bills that have not yet passed the House, which means you’ll want to write your House Representative. Bills that have passed the House will then go to the Senate, so for those you’ll want to write both of your state’s Senators.
You’ll also find bills that have been referred to a committee. There are different committees in both the House and the Senate that are dedicated to different public issues from agriculture to veterans’ affairs. (You can see a list of these committees on Congress.gov.) These committees are made up of congress members and have a chair and several sitting members. Together, they hold public hearings to gather more information on any bills referred to them as well as on the oversight and management of any agencies or programs that fall within their topic. If you’ve ever seen video footage of experts or lobbyists testifying before Congress, you have seen a public committee hearing.
If a bill that interests you is in committee (or if you know the committee oversees an issue important to you), you will want to find out who the chairman and other sitting members are. Then you will address a separate letter and fax directly to each of them individually. You may not need to change anything but the salutation and address on the letter for each member you write.
How to Address Your Letter
There is a specific order in which to write the addressing information. You’ll also want to refer to your congressman with the title “The Honorable” in this block of text.
Start with the date in the upper left hand corner of the page.
Underneath that, the address information is listed in the following format:
The Honorable (Insert Full Name of Congressman)
(Room #) (Name of Building) (Senate or House) Office Building
United States (Senate or House of Representatives)
Washington, D.C. (20510 zip code for the Senate or 20515 zip code for the House)
Give Your Letter a Bold Title
After the opening address, you may want to write a bold title that summarizes the issue about which you are writing. You can write something like this:
Re: H.R. 191 for Increasing Education Funding
After this title line you begin your letter with a salutation, e.g., “Dear Senator” or “Dear Congressman/Congresswoman.”
Are You a Constituent?
In general, letters written from constituents are given more time and consideration. A constituent is anybody who lives in the district of a congressman. For Senators, a constituent is anybody in their state. For a Representative, it’s a more narrowly defined district.
If you are a constituent, mention this very early on in the letter. Writing your name and address in the upper right corner of the page will help as well. You should also include your address after the space where you sign your name at the bottom.
If you are not a constituent, that’s okay. Just explain why you’re writing another district’s representative. For example, “I live in Ohio, but I’m very experienced in education and wanted to write you about the bill that is before you as a member of the Education Committee.”
Do Your Research
No matter what you’re writing them about, you have to know your stuff. If you have any credentials, list them! These could include your education, work history, research, and positions held that lend you credibility on the subject.
It can also help to find a few pertinent facts or statistics that drive your point home. Make sure you avoid biased sources, and always list your resources.
Avoid Form Letters
A lot of times, non-profits and other entities with a vested interest in a bill will send out form letters for people to sign and forward to their representatives. The intent is to make it easier to contact your congressmen, but repeat or obvious form letters eventually get tossed aside. Why get thrown in the bin when you can take a few minutes to write your own and make sure someone takes the time to read your thoughts?
Add a Personal Touch
To tie in the above two points, adding your personal story to your letter is invaluable. It’s one thing to write you representative because you’re ideologically for or against a proposed action. It’s another thing entirely to tell them how something could personally affect you, your family or your community.
It doesn’t have to be heart-wrenching. Your story will simply help personalize the issue for a congressman who may have no direct experience with the problems of a particular group or demographic.
Keep it Brief
Congressmen and their staff are busy people. It’s important to get to the point quickly and keep the length of your letter to one page (or two if you really have good reason to include more information). Write like a journalist: the first sentence or paragraph should summarize who you are – don’t forget to note if you’re a constituent that lives in their district – and why you are writing. From there you can build into more detail. Close by again summarizing your hope, e.g., you hope they vote YES on H.R. 178.
If you have more than one topic, split it into two separate letters and two separate faxes. Try not to contact excessively within a short time frame.
Keep it Professional & Proofread
This includes your tone, spelling and grammar.
While you are certainly free to express your frustration or disappointment, be polite. Your thoughts are less likely to be completely read and understood if they contain swear words or plain angry language. Any threats in a letter may be followed up on by the proper authorities.
Your spelling and grammar will reflect well on your letter, too. Avoid excessive punctuation like exclamation points. Never write in all capital letters, which translates as shouting. Use normal sized font and color and stick with Times New Roman or Arial to make it easy to read.
Take the time to proofread for mistakes and run spell check. It helps to read out loud to catch awkward sounding phrases or bad grammar. You may even have a friend read it over to make sure your letter makes sense and to double-check for any glaring errors that spell check may have missed.
Don’t Forget a Cover Sheet
If you fax your letter, you’ll want to include a cover sheet. This is the page that is sent before your actual letter. It includes all of your contact information (especially your fax number) as well as the name, address and phone number of the person you are trying to fax. Most cover sheets also include a small area for comments or notes where you can summarize your purpose for writing.
Cover sheets provide a level of confidentiality. Whoever receives the fax will know who it should go to without having to read the letter itself. The cover sheet also lists the number of pages that should be received in case the fax machine has run out of paper or the following pages were not received for some other reason. A cover sheet will also help if your fax is sent online to the wrong phone number. The recipient can see your contact information to notify you that it was not received by your intended party.
Don’t Demand or Expect a Personalized Response
Most responses to letters are canned. They are sent in reply to everyone who writes about a particular bill or topic to thank them for writing and to explain the congressman’s position. This doesn’t mean nobody read or cared about your letter, so try not to take it personally. It’s simply a time-saving measure.
Write a Positive or Thank You Letter
Finally, it’s worth mentioning the obvious. Congressmen receive a lot of negative complaint letters after nearly every action they take. If your congressman voted as you wanted him or her to vote, take a few minutes to write and send a fax online to send a short thank you note (especially if you previously wrote them a letter expressing your opinion).
Sample Letters
These sample letters cover a variety of situations under which you might write your representatives. Consider whether you can speak with authority, as in Letter #1. Also think about how you want to structure your arguments, whether in paragraph, bulleted or numbered format.
Remember: if you have a relevant personal tie to the issue, mention it briefly. Spend most of the letter, though, discussing facts and/or proposed solutions.
Sample Letter #1 (Personal Credentials)
January 1, 2015
The Honorable John Doe
2222 Rayburn House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Re: H.R. 5 the Student Success Act
Dear Representative John Doe:
As a teacher and a constituent, I am concerned about the potential impact of H.R. 5, which calls for over $1.7 billion in education cuts. I am writing to urge you to vote “No” on this bill.
My school and many others are already struggling to cut back. We understand that everyone has had to make adjustments post-recession. However, my school district is expecting our enrollment to continue to increase by 4 to 6 percent annually over the next 5 years. Combined with the proposed federal budget cuts, we will likely have to make cuts to our academic programs for both advanced and struggling students. For teachers like me, this can mean money out of our own pockets as we try to keep our classroom activities up to par.
Another effect of this bill is the complete lack of funding for public preschool programs. Studies continue to show that those who attend preschool demonstrate improvement in long term test scores and important development in language, literacy, mathematics and social skills. Low-income families and communities, in particular, benefit from these preschool programs. They provide a free, safe and education-oriented place for children to learn while their parents can work more hours.
District Administration magazine recently published in its March 2015 edition that during the 2013-14 fiscal school year, state spending increased on average by 12 percent. Yet not every state is able to afford these increases which may cause taxes to be raised on those who can least afford it.
Finally, the Title I Portability clause takes money from the school districts that need it most and transfers it to optional private and charter schools. Title I was intended to help schools with low income students which very often suffer from low local funding. This Portability clause leaves the public schools that are already hurting the most in a serious financial bind.
Thank you for your consideration. When this bill comes up to vote, I urge you as a concerned teacher on the ground to vote “No.” If we truly want a Student Success Act to help our students be successful, we need to avoid or reduce these drastic cuts.
Sincerely,
Jane Smith
123 Main Street
Anytown, State 98887
Phone: 555-999-2222
Fax: 555-999-2223
Sample Letter #2 (Personal Interest with Counter-Arguments & Proposed Solution)
January 1, 2015
The Honorable John Doe
2222 Rayburn House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Re: H.R. 717 Restoration of America’s Wire Act
Dear Representative John Doe:
As a casual online poker player and a constituent of yours, I encourage you to vote No on Representative Jason Chaffetz’s bill. This is the second time he has introduced this bill to the House that seeks to ban online gambling in the 3 states that allow it: Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey.
Just like with legal brick-and-mortar casinos, off-track betting locations and state-sponsored lotteries, online gambling is an enjoyable and exciting hobby. With the low bet limit tables, it is almost always cheaper for me to play a few hours of poker on a Friday night than to go to the movies. It also allows me to connect and spend time with friends who no longer live close enough to play poker in our basements.
I understand the risks of underage and out-of-state players, but the companies who run these sites are already strict about verifying information. The site I use is run by Caesars Interactive, which is based in our state of New Jersey. They use 8 different verifications including checking for a valid social security number. If there is concern that out-of-state or underage citizens are using these gambling sites, where is the evidence?
Another concern brought up by this bill’s supporters is the economic effect on brick-and-mortar casinos. This may be the case to some extent, that online players might have spent their money in-person at a local casino if Internet gambling was not available. However, this is simply the nature of a free market. We cannot protect special interests by shutting down up-and-coming technology and businesses.
Sadly, one of the main arguments being used by Chaffetz is one of “family values.” He has authored this bill with the false assumption that online gambling allows minors easy access to gambling when this is not the case for any online casino based in the United States. The only ones that may cause problems are those that are based overseas to skirt our laws. A few congressmen’s opinion on family values should not make federal law.
Additionally, it is clear that this bill as a “Restoration of America’s Wire Act” of 1961 is misleading. The original wire act banned “bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest.” For years, the Justice Department claimed this wording banned online gambling even though it was written before the Internet even existed. This decision was finally rejected in 2002 by a federal appeals court. Even the Justice Department no longer supports its own previous claim. Restoring this interpretation of the act will not pass muster with the courts, so it is essentially a completely new bill that should be publicly discussed and debated as such.
As a solution, I would suggest more serious crackdowns on U.S. access to offshore gambling sites that do attempt to violate these state laws. It may also be worth adding a payroll tax to the rake that is collected by the U.S. companies like Caesars Interactive. Or perhaps you can consider a tax to all deposits or withdrawals from the online gambling accounts. This additional funding could benefit a worthy public cause like education which truly would help the children.
Thanks for your consideration, and I again urge you to vote “No” on this bill. It is not just me as a player that takes interest but the companies that already exist which would be put out of business and be forced to lay off hundreds of employees should this law pass.
Sincerely,
Jack Spade
123 Main Street
Anytown, State 98887
Phone: 555-999-2222
Fax: 555-999-2223
Sample Letter #3 (Personal Story with Bulleted Data)
January 1, 2015
The Honorable John Doe
2222 Senate Building
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Re: S. 746 Accelerating the End of Breast Cancer Act of 2015
Dear Senator John Doe:
As someone in your district who has lost family and friends to breast cancer, I urge you to vote “Yes” on Senate bill 746. Here are a few pertinent reasons why from the National Breast Cancer Coalition:
- 1 in 8 American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their life.
- 200,000 Americans per year diagnosed with this disease.
- There are more than 2 million women and men living with breast cancer in America today.
- Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death among women.
- This year alone, over 40,000 women will die from breast cancer.
- This bill seeks to eliminate breast cancer by 2020. This is only 5 years but it is an excitingly feasible plan.
- In 2010, breast cancer care cost the United States $16.5 billion dollars.
- By 2020, with no further public funding for research, this amount could rise to $20.5 billion.
Last year, a 24-year-old friend of mine since elementary school was diagnosed with breast cancer. This diagnosis came just 5 years after she lost her mother to the same disease. My friend was lucky enough to make it to her dream wedding this past weekend, but her dream to have children and live a long, happy life will likely never happen. Her cancer has metastasized, spreading to her bones. She may not have long, but it is our hope that her story and the hundreds of thousands like her will spur our country’s resolve to find a cure.
We see pink ribbons everywhere and nearly every family in America has been impacted, but awareness is not enough. Private funding is only able to go so far. Private organizations invest money where they believe they will see the most cost benefit. This means some research is avoided or abandoned due to financial or technical difficulties.
This bipartisan bill helps find the cure by creating a commission that is exclusively dedicated to finding promising research opportunities that are in need of funding, thereby facilitating partnerships and research between public and private entities. This maximizes our country’s efforts to find a cure and ensures that public funding is spent in a non-duplicative way.
Please take the time to co-sponsor this bill and vote “Yes.” No more lives should have to be lost nor should families have to be broken by a disease that we can work together to end in just 5 years.
Sincerely,
Jack Spade
123 Main Street
Anytown, State 98887
Phone: 555-999-2222
Fax: 555-999-2223
Sample Letter #4 (A Hypothetical Scenario or Bill)
January 1, 2015
The Honorable John Doe
2222 Rayburn House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Re: Any Bills that Enact Further Gun Control Regulations
Dear Representative John Doe:
Following the recent public shooting in our district, there have been many calls from citizens and congressmen alike that seek to make it more difficult for law-abiding Americans to exercise their 2nd amendment right to bear arms. As a responsible gun owner in your district, I take gun crime very seriously and have suggestions that stand a much better chance of preventing these shootings in the future.
Before any potential laws are proposed or enacted, I would like to outline some arguments against further restrictions and gun control attempts.
To Counter Popular Arguments:
- The vast majority of the perpetrators in recent major shootings obtained their guns legally or had stolen them. This means making it more difficult to legally purchase a gun will not necessarily prevent future similar crimes but will definitely make it more difficult on those seeking guns for self-defense or other legal uses like hunting.
- Most of these shootings occur in locations that already ban guns. Public high schools, movie theaters, college campuses, etc. all post signs that guns are not allowed on the premises. This has not stopped these tragedies from occurring, so it will not help to ban guns in more public places.
- Banning or restricting guns only addresses one potential weapon. If someone is intent on doing harm but cannot obtain a gun, they will improvise. They can create a bomb. They can use a vehicle on a busy sidewalk. They can use a knife. The idea of legislating our gun crime away is ludicrous; it only turns into another form of violent crime. All of this is the case assuming the criminal doesn’t simply steal a gun or go to the black market to circumvent harsher gun-banning laws.
Potential Solutions:
- Mental health treatment should get a serious look here. These mass shootings are almost always committed by someone who has a detectable and oftentimes treatable mental illness. Without enough public resources, funding and awareness, these ill people go years without treatment. The early warnings signs are noticed but friends and family are unable to get them help with the current treatment system. Additional funding and restructuring to make access easier to navigate and obtain could help prevent future shootings.
- Economic conditions are often a factor in day-to-day street crime. These shootings are not often covered outside of local news like the mass shootings that get weeks of national media attention. Yet most people who die by gun are caught in the middle of illegal drug rings, gangs and other street crimes that occur regularly in economically depressed areas. If we can find a way to boost these regions through education, economic stimulus and clean-up projects – which could employ locals – to boost property values and attract new businesses, we could get to the root of many of our problems.
I’m sure there are many other solutions that can help us address the cause of our country’s gun crimes and violence rather than the misleading symptoms thereof. Restricting guns only hurts those who have them for good reason. Let’s make our laws work for us, not against us.
Thank you for your consideration. I hope you vote against any bills that miss the root of this problem and instead focus on authoring or co-sponsoring bills that truly help.
Sincerely,
Joe Texas
123 Main Street
Anytown, State 98887
Phone: 555-999-2222
Fax: 555-999-2223
Sample Letter #5 (A Thank You Letter)
January 1, 2015
The Honorable John Doe
2222 Rayburn House Office Building
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Re: H. Res. 109 Condemning Iran for Persecution
Dear Representative John Doe:
As a Baha’i living in your district, I want to thank you for sponsoring the House Resolution that condemned Iran for its persecution of religious minorities.
Although I was born in America, my husband and his entire family are refugees from Iran. They know first-hand the oppression that occurs on a daily basis. Denied access to universities solely on the basis of their faith and unable to establish places of worship, they fled to the United States where they knew they would find religious freedom. They have all become successful, highly educated, tax-paying citizens who are very grateful that you and your colleagues passed this important resolution.
We hope you will continue urging the President to take more tangible measures. While this condemnation is an important step, we understand it does not have “teeth” to it. It is up to the President and Secretary of State to impose harsher sanctions under the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2010. These sanctions can apply pressure directly to the officials in charge as opposed to economic sanctions that hurt the entire population, innocent or otherwise.
We also urge you to, whenever appropriate, raise awareness for this cause while reminding Americans that most Iranians are good people. The vilification in the media has skewed the public’s perception of Iran and its citizens, who by and large live by an understood code of not reporting minor offenses like uncovered hair to the government. In fact, many young Iranians are very modern, enjoying clubs, fashion, music, technology, science and other aspects of “Western” culture. Since 60% of Iran’s population is under 30 years old, it is with these young people that our hope for a peaceful Middle East lies.
Please encourage your colleagues to keep abreast of the atrocities of the imprisoned Baha’i educators, who are winning peace awards while they serve their unjust sentences. Two of these prisoners share our family name.
Thank you again for your efforts to help the Baha’is, Christians and other minorities who are persecuted in Iran. You spoke for us, and we deeply appreciate that our voice was heard on an international level.
Sincerely,
Jane Fars
123 Main Street
Anytown, State 98887
Phone: 555-999-2222
Fax: 555-999-2223
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