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Chapter EighteenIIIChapter Twenty

19. Dial-a-rep: roust your representatives

I once had a conversation with a long serving and well-respected member of the Texas senate. We were not discussing the evils of the CID industry; instead, he was lamenting the abominable state of public apathy. In the last gubernatorial election only 29% of the population took part. With that thought in mind, he told me that the general public is so comatose that whenever he gets just ten letters on the same topic, it’s considered a cataclysmic groundswell. And that just about concludes this chapter. You know what to do.

Just ten letters is all it takes to get the attention of your elected representatives. But I think you can do a lot better than that. This is why organization is so important. CAI lobbyists are helping to fund your representative’s election or re-election campaigns, and as long as they’re willing to pay, and the public is looking the other way, your representatives will pass or block legislation in any way that is favorable to their financial supporters.

It is only in those rare occasions when the public really gets worked up and into a position where they can give or take away more votes than a lobbyist can buy that a representative begins to act like a servant of the people.

Organize your supporters in your neighborhood and all those other activists from all those other neighborhood websites you linked yours to and vise versa. Send letters en mass. While you’re at it, find out what’s going on in the state legislature this session. Who is trying to diminish your property rights, how are they trying to do it, and what are you going to do about it?

I know; that’s a lot of big talk much easier to say than to do. So just do your best.

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Chapter EighteenIIIChapter Twenty