Executive summary: The author argues that writing or calling legislators is a surprisingly effective and neglected way to influence policy, citing small but consistent evidence from experiments and surveys suggesting messaging campaigns can change votes at reasonable cost, especially at the state level, though the data remains weak and uncertain.
Key points:
Two randomized experiments (Bergan 2009; Bergan & Cole 2014) found that small numbers of constituent messages (3–22 per legislator) increased pro-bill votes by 12–20 percentage points, implying high potential leverage at the state level.
Surveys of U.S. congressional staff indicate that personalized messages from constituents matter more than lobbyists or form letters, though self-report bias limits confidence.
Observational studies on responsiveness to public opinion show mixed results, varying widely by methodology and issue area.
The author’s cost-effectiveness model estimates that changing a vote outcome requires roughly 17,000 messages for a medium-sized state legislature and 2.2 million for U.S. Congress, at median costs of $440,000 and $58 million respectively.
Messaging campaigns seem competitive with many advocacy interventions and may outperform AI alignment research on marginal cost-effectiveness, though lobbying could still be better under some conditions.
The post provides practical links for participating in campaigns related to animal welfare, AI safety, and global poverty, recommending personalized letters when possible but endorsing form letters as valuable fallback options.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: The author argues that writing or calling legislators is a surprisingly effective and neglected way to influence policy, citing small but consistent evidence from experiments and surveys suggesting messaging campaigns can change votes at reasonable cost, especially at the state level, though the data remains weak and uncertain.
Key points:
Two randomized experiments (Bergan 2009; Bergan & Cole 2014) found that small numbers of constituent messages (3–22 per legislator) increased pro-bill votes by 12–20 percentage points, implying high potential leverage at the state level.
Surveys of U.S. congressional staff indicate that personalized messages from constituents matter more than lobbyists or form letters, though self-report bias limits confidence.
Observational studies on responsiveness to public opinion show mixed results, varying widely by methodology and issue area.
The author’s cost-effectiveness model estimates that changing a vote outcome requires roughly 17,000 messages for a medium-sized state legislature and 2.2 million for U.S. Congress, at median costs of $440,000 and $58 million respectively.
Messaging campaigns seem competitive with many advocacy interventions and may outperform AI alignment research on marginal cost-effectiveness, though lobbying could still be better under some conditions.
The post provides practical links for participating in campaigns related to animal welfare, AI safety, and global poverty, recommending personalized letters when possible but endorsing form letters as valuable fallback options.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.