Contacting Legislators
When and how often?
A question that we frequently hear is “When and how often should I contact my legislators?” The answer is write a letter whenever you have an issue that is toll road related, should it be poor service at the toll authority office in Downers Grove, a story or letter that you have read in the newspaper or heard on the radio or TV. Any excuse or reason is fair game and good for our no toll/tax goal. A letter once a month is not too many.
Writing a good letter in your own words is by far the best; however, we realize that we are not all good letter writers and some may find that they are busy and don’t have time to compose even a half page letter. That’s OK, we understand.
But, let’s say you find a story, an editorial or a “Letter to the editor” in your local newspaper and you know that it would benefit the no toll/tax cause if your senator and others knew about it. Cut it from the newspaper, make several copies, and attach a sticky note with something like “I think this person is right on target. I want you to support no toll/tax legislation”, sign your name and mail or Fax a copy to every person on your contact list. Be sure to send a copy to the NO TOLLS office of all correspondence to and from your legislators. We need to keep a report card for each legislator.
A word about why you should not send your letter by e-mail. Many government recipients have said that they receive between a hundred and up to a couple hundred e-mail letters per day and because of their limited time, will not take a minute to fully comprehend the importance of your letter. Remember! The reason you are contacting your legislators is that you want them to read, keep and act on your letter – not click the “delete” button. We, therefore, recommend using postal mail or sending your letter by Fax.
In the future we will have links to allow you to find your state legislators. Please be patient as we are just getting this started. Below is a link to Project Vote Smart where you can enter your zip code and it will list your elected officials for all levels of government. The ones we are concerned with are the state level officials.