Arcangl86
Newbie
This is fascinating. Thank you for this.You would need a powerful microscope to find any chance Speaker Pelosi will read the letter in this thread's original post, but if it's actually sent it will be read by an intern in her office. This is not due to the writer living outside of her district, though, but rather because the letter is self-indulgently verbose and trite, offering nothing that merits it being passed up the chain with the potential of making it before her eyes.
This is a false assertion. I'm not sure what your personal experience entailed or how long ago you knew someone who worked on the staff for a former Speaker of the House, but it's most definitely Speaker Pelosi's office policy that all received correspondence be read and logged regardless of the person's residency. My university has an internship and fellowship program with her office, and many of her recent and present staff are my friends and classmates who've been tasked with this duty.
Most people today submit written correspondence via one of two online portals rather than wastefully and inefficiently by paper and delivered mail. One portal is open to all to be able to contact Speaker Pelosi in regards to her role as Speaker of the House. Since millions more are at liberty to contact her office this way, obviously the volume of correspondence is significantly higher and the likelihood of a tailored reply even lower. However, every submission is logged, and it is read. Her office's software will record the sender's details and IP address and autofill it on the log form. If a staffer reads something of worth or requiring attention, it's then shown to a supervisor. Letters that are exceptional in some form may receive a response.
There's a second portal exclusively for constituents of Speaker Pelosi's district; you must enter in your zip code in order to be able to access it. Anyone living in her district who has a time-sensitive, critical issue is encouraged to directly call her office, and that's what most do. For less urgent matters, the majority use the portal. As to be expected, her staff gives priority to those in her district with concrete needs but that doesn't mean they ignore the rest who live outside of it. Most representatives organize and prioritize correspondence similarly.
Printed letters sent by mail are more cumbersome but they're not discarded if the postmark is from out of district. Some offices scan letters first as a safety precaution. Then they are opened. Both the letter and the envelope are scanned and logged in.
I've worked for two California incumbent state senators, both Democrats, neither of whom even had a Republican challenger who qualified to make it onto the ballot, so courting votes is not a high concern. My reason for working for them is out of a passion for public health, and specifically vaccination, causes they've championed. As with Speaker Pelosi, priority of correspondence is given to those within their districts, but I've read emails, faxes, and letters from all around the state, the country, and as far away as Australia. The importance of reading all correspondence and keeping logs actually came into play just this week because one of the senators was assaulted by a middle-aged anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist who'd sent him belligerent, unhinged emails. The assaulter had tried and failed to be a write-in candidate for the California State Senate. I also worked for a high-profile Congressman (also a Democrat) and read many messages submitted via the online portal or by fax; the few letters mostly sent from the very young (often charming!) or the old; and accepted calls from people who live outside of his district.
Threats are one of the reason why many representatives have all their correspondence read and logged. Both Republicans and Democrats receive them, unfortunately.
I wouldn't give my time to working for them if I didn't know the answer to unequivocally be yes.
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