Welcome to Voice/Mail
Hi, and welcome to Voice/Mail, a newsletter about how people and their governments talk to each other. This project documents the current state of engagement between constituents and their elected representatives, and explores how the landscape of democratic engagement is changing in light of rapidly-evolving technology and politics.
Put simply: how do constituents see their representatives, and how do representatives see their constituents? How does democratic participation between elections happen today, and how will it happen in five, ten, fifty years? Starting from where we are — not where we wish we were — how can we figure out better ways of doing this?
Why subscribe?
Subscribe for research, thoughts, and interviews with people who know what they’re talking about on:
The complex ways legislatures and constituents interact, no matter who initiates contact or how long it lasts or what it’s ostensibly about or for. To keep track of those methods and how they are changing, we’ve started an Airtable.
Feedback loops between constituent input and policymaking, and why we need more of them/need them to work better.
How contact between people and legislatures evolves and changes with the introduction of AI and other technologies that collapse previously non-negotiable tradeoffs to constituent engagement.
Congress in the civic imagination: how do people think Congress works, what it can do, where it’s going, its role in their lives? What life history experiences and cultural forces shape this?
People in the legislative imagination: how do Members and their staff think about what constituents want or expect of them, and what they should do about it?
The evolution of organized advocacy intended to influence Members of Congress, including protest.
The uneven arms race between campaign engagement and “official” or governing engagement for constituent time and attention, and how each affects the other.
Cultural and media portrayals of Congress and legislatures — why did Congress get House of Cards when the Exec Branch gets the West Wing and Veep?
Cool new ways constituents and legislatures are trying to talk to each other.
