Tell us about that time you and your neighbors called your representative and somehow "pressured" him to break against party, donors, and every other force acting in the opposite direction. Did you succeed because you and your neighbors made persuasive arguments, or were you important donors, or did you merely receive an equivocal response? Or was the matter a triviality with no important competing interests?
The real means of pressuring legislators (that is to say, how it is routinely done) is via regulatory capture. To have any influence you need to somehow bring more pressure to bear on your legislator than the current forces which determine your legislator's incentives. Let the legislator weigh in one hand angry constituent phone calls to his staff, and in the other, important donors, access to funding organizations, post-public sector job opportunities, etc. etc. Which hand is more weighed down?
When someone points out the depth of corruption and dysfunction and this elicits the response "just call your legislator", it strikes me as either patronizing or merely naive.
The real means of pressuring legislators (that is to say, how it is routinely done) is via regulatory capture. To have any influence you need to somehow bring more pressure to bear on your legislator than the current forces which determine your legislator's incentives. Let the legislator weigh in one hand angry constituent phone calls to his staff, and in the other, important donors, access to funding organizations, post-public sector job opportunities, etc. etc. Which hand is more weighed down?
When someone points out the depth of corruption and dysfunction and this elicits the response "just call your legislator", it strikes me as either patronizing or merely naive.