( – promoted by redstateblues)
I received a communication from a friend in Senate District 7, which recently elected Steve King. For some reason, I get the message that King doesn’t care about the views of some of his constituents, that he is marching to the tune of only the right wing, drill baby drill crowd.
I have received your “blast email” explaining the groups position onColorado Energy. I will be supporting both pieces of legislation in
order to bring our state to a more well rounded and cost effective
energy policy for those citizens on fixed income and the poor.I am concerned with your groups use of “blast email” in order to
disrupt this office’s ability to communicate with the other
constituents of Senate District 7. If your group continues to use
this form of divisive and lazy communication I will be required to
block your email. If you would like to talk about this communication
issue further please call my office at 1-303-866-3077Senator Steven A. King
That’s it folks. Who in King’s camp ‘requires’ him to block the e-mail from this constituent? What is divisive and/or lazy about this communication?
Here is the original communication:
Jan 27, 2011Senator Steven King Colorado State Capitol 200 East Colfax Denver, CO 80203
Dear Senator King,
As you may know, the Senate will soon consider two bills, SB 58 and SB 71, that would turn back the clock on clean energy. Please vote no on both bills.
SB 58, sponsored by Sen. Scott Renfroe, would severely limit the authority of the Public Utilities Commission to promote clean power generation. It would force the PUC to abandon broader considerations of the economic and environmental benefits of clean energy in favor of a narrow and short-sighted focus on immediate fuel costs.
SB 71, sponsored by Sen. Shawn Mitchell, would scale back our 30% by 2020 renewable energy standard, dropping it to 10%. It would reverse course on the progress we’ve made since 2007 and derail Colorado’s cutting-edge role in developing renewable energy.
As President Obama just told the nation, to win our future, we must invest in technologies like wind and solar generation, not revert to the misguided complacency of the past. We must continue to promote investment in renewables and enlarge the field of clean energy jobs. Let’s embrace the future, keep pushing forward, and say no those who would turn back the clock. Please vote no on SB 58 and SB 71.
Full story: Senator Steve King’s approach to the thoughts of others
You seem to assume that King knows how to read. Having staff read constituent emails to him might be consuming an excessive amount of staff time.
I’m interested to know how many emails the one person sent him, but maybe scolding your constituency isn’t the best idea? Maybe?
That’s the start of a good question.
Which organization sent the email and what did it say? Certainly there must be a copy floating around.
I’m assuming King’s email address is listed for the general public on his legislative web page. If it is, I’m sure he gets a lot of Viagra spam too. Is he blocking that as well?
Re-reading the Senator’s email, I can actually get the way he, or at least his staffer, would be annoyed. I’d hate to read the same email from the same person repeatedly.
The author posted two diaries, which I thought were the same. I deleted the double post because I thought they both contained the same information, but now that I read this one I notice that it does not contain the original e-mail that was sent to King’s office.
If the author would kindly either e-mail me, or edit the diary so that it contains that original e-mail, it would be much appreciated.
And restored the content of the deleted post to this one. If there are any edits made to this post that we’ve overwritten with this action, we apologize, but this would appear to be the more complete version.
I’m sure there’s going to be an investigation launched into this obvious malfeasance of office any minute now.
Pack an overnight bag, and go ahead and put a pillow case over your head now to save us time.
First people were bothered by his
double dipping…ummmm… creative use of the per Diem even as he campaigned on fiscal responsibility…Now, he has to put up with his constituency contacting him–on his state provided email for constituent contact. The horror! When will it end?
He might find form e-mails annoying, but they are not spam and he should not deal with the problem by threatening to remove a method of constituent contact.
Same idea, brought up to date. Why does King hate grassroots action and citizen engagement?
King really means he doesn’t want such emails from people who are critical. I am sure when GJResults or whichever TP group launches their email blast, Mr. King will not be so dismissive. Typical monarchical delusion of the GJ GOP elite.
It is my understanding that the original letter to King was the effort of the Colorado Environmental Coalition. How many were sent, I have no idea. Maybe only one. That would probably be enough pressure to make him flinch, which he did.
Nobody should be surprised that Sen. King is ignoring these emails.
One, there isn’t anything in the email(s) that identify the sender as a constituent. As far as Sen. King knows a Boulder environmentalist is sending this to him.
Two, blast emails are a lame excuse for grassroots advocacy. Sorry, but it’s true. If you care enough about the bills in question, get off your damned computer and call the Senator. At a minimum(!), write an email in your own words. Cutting and pasting a blast email just to fill up inboxes at the capitol is annoying, to say the least.
Three, why the hell would you refer to President Obama in an email to a west slope Republican from an oil and gas district?! Seriously, man, if sending a blast email out wasn’t annoying enough, you’re telling a right wing Republican to buy into Obama’s rhetoric. Get a clue!
These bulk emails are almost like spam, not quite, but close. They are lazy and rarely change the debate. Staffers tally up the numbers for pro/con and that’s it – since most of the emails say the same thing over and over and over…The group who gets enough people to spam an account, gets, what, a lollipop?
ask for name, address and email of the participant. The ideal is to get local constituents and to target letters/emails to the actual representative/senator.
Most also include a field to modify and edit the comments, or append to them.
Do you know that each and every email King received was identical? Do you know if they included the senders’ info, address, etc. which clearly WOULD identify where the sender resides? Don’t be offended if I presume you don’t.
I suspect that
1) For most, it was clear who the emails came from and where they reside, and 2) some probably included some personal opinion, reflection, etc. and thus were not, in fact, each and everyone identical.
I don’t know this, because I haven’t poked around in this particular case; but I do know how this is done.
Calls, personal emails are best–but any constituent voicing an opinion on legislation–whether a simple thumbs up or down, or a policy treatise–does not deserve having their input dismissed as ‘spam.’
—-
Indeed, rather than speculate, I simply went to the source. Mr. King–victim though I am sure he wants to imagine himself–is not the target of this effort, rather ALL state senators are. And both my suppositions above were correct.
https://secure3.convio.net/cec…
Sen King, and all the other legislators receiving these emails, would see where the sender resides, assuming the info was correct.
The author of the diary is a constituent of Sen. King’s – although he is also a self described progressive speaking with a liberal voice.
Also, you’re correct that a constituent’s opinion deserves attention. I’m saying it deserves the same amount of attention as the constituent put into forming it.
The email posted above is word for word what the CEC has on their website. It took the author all of, what, ten seconds, to fill in some personal info and hit send. And I do know that the majority of the bulk emails sent to legislators, like the one above, aren’t personalized.
As I said, this is the lazy man’s way to advocate.
The email got the attention it deserved.
not necessarily the specific letter they sent. Based on my own experience (which is substantial) about 1/3 of the alerts I have been involved that encourage folks to add their own thoughts tend to include a few. Would 2/3 or 4/5 be better?
Absolutely. But to one so inclined, its just as easy to ignore a few of those as it is a few dozen of these. Conflating them all into one mass of ‘spam’ that somehow ‘offends’ the legislator is a start in that dismissal.
He might have said for instance “It is most helpful to me when my constituents include their own perspectives and why these issues matter to them and their families, and I appreciate those who took the time to do that. Of course, I care what all my constituents think and the purpose of providing email contact information is to encourage that type of interaction. That said, getting the same letter over and over isn’t as useful as hearing individual opinions.” Instead we get ‘WAAAHHHHHHH’
Yes, there are more effective ways to contact a legislator than email, and mostly generic ones at that. I still maintain it is not the means by which he was contacted that so offends Mr. King, but rather the source–i.e. folks whom tend to disagree with him.
Getting hundreds of emails like this in an inbox only solidified his opinion (I’m guessing).
Why bother with a lame way of outreach in this case? If it’t that important, pick up the phone and call.
King wrote what others under the dome feel. Not a smart move on his part, but I wonder if anyone took the Senator up on his invitation…
Probably very few, if any. Know why? Lazy.
I would like to see the emails he received. I’m sure he would willingly share them. I’ll let you know.
Then we can debate even longer on a subject that is of minimal importance to both our lives
It’s called blogging Car!
Too true.
I just think King doesn’t need to threaten his constituents to get that point across. Legislators get plenty of downright hateful e-mails from all sorts of lazy, unorganized groups, and I don’t think a Democrat would have gotten a pass if they responded to a Tea Partier the way King did.
I don’t think he should have been so direct and blunt when a simple, “Thanks for your bulk email. I’m supporting the bills. Yours Truly…” would have sufficed. At least he didn’t say, “Fuck off, if I had my way I’d drill in your backyard”.
This email came from the CO Enviro Coalition, which is a good group, advocates well on behalf of their group, and encourages people to give a shit. All good things. Their website allows their lazier constituents to send emails without forming their own thoguhts. Fine.
King is who he is, and the author of this diary knows that King isn’t a big supporter of the CEC’s agenda and isn’t going to oppose SB 58 and 71. Yet he is surprised that King replies as he did? Would be like me getting a hundred plus friends of mine to blast an email to DeGette telling her to oppose wildlife designations in Colorado.
Blast email may seem useful to some, but, from my conversations with legislators, they rarely change any opinions or influence the debate. More often there’s resentment, as shown by Sen King, that a legislators inbox is filled with multiple copies of the same boring email.
about whether King threatened to block the organization’s address or the constituent’s address.
There might be no excuse for the former; there is certainly no excuse for the latter.
King seems to enjoy living in an echo chamber. Next time, preface the email with how much you like his hair. Use that as a subject line, even. It will get read.
Dear Sen King,
I love your hair. Your hair reminds me of natural gas flaring in the evening dusk.
As you may know, the Senate will soon consider two bills, SB 58 and SB 71, that would turn back the clock on clean energy. Please vote no on both bills.
SB 58, sponsored by Sen. Scott Renfroe, would severely limit the authority of the Public Utilities Commission to promote clean power generation. It would force the PUC to abandon broader considerations of the economic and environmental benefits of clean energy in favor of a narrow and short-sighted focus on immediate fuel costs.
SB 71, sponsored by Sen. Shawn Mitchell, would scale back our 30% by 2020 renewable energy standard, dropping it to 10%. It would reverse course on the progress we’ve made since 2007 and derail Colorado’s cutting-edge role in developing renewable energy.
As President Obama, who also loves your hair, just told the nation, to win our future, we must all have better hair like you. We must also continue to promote investment in renewables and enlarge the field of clean energy jobs. Let’s embrace the future, and new and better hairstyles, keep pushing forward, and say no those who would turn back the clock (but yes to good hair, like yours). Please vote no on SB 58 and SB 71.
Love the hair,
Your constituent
See how easy that is?!
T’ain’t rocket science…
how seriously I am considering stealing this, part and parcel.
But, I’m having trouble thinking about an approach with Lamborn who looks like he is afraid of shampoo and dry cleaners. I guess “I love the mailers”….
I suppose we could always admire his “hide out in a cave from your constituents” approach.
Maybe he’s trying to learn the ways of al-Qaeda so he can take them down…
and saviour of us all.
As you may know, the Senate will soon consider two bills, SB 58 and SB 71, that would turn back the clock on clean energy. Please vote no on both bills.
Et cetera.
You have God like qualities.
Fellow Patriot,
Signature
It’s a good little plan!
You make that look so easy.
You win. Hands down.
says it, too. Maybe that’s where Car picked it up. :)
http://www.urbandictionary.com…
No. No. No.
It isn’t = T’ain’t
Damn, I have to be more careful with my colloquialisms!
to block their e-mail. I do agree your suggested response would have been much better.
I have a hard time feeling sorry for any of our legislators about mass e-mails, petitions, or any of the other dumb things that activists do. It’s goes with the job.
Advocacy groups do better in their fundraising appeals by telling their donors,
“Our most recent blast email achieved an X percent click through.”
So certainly it’s true that legislators would pay more attention to a hand written letter, they do keep score of pluses and negatives on issues, and the advocacy groups keeps score in a meaningful way as well.
forgive my ignorance of the jargon, but does ‘click through’ mean number of completed emails sent from a certain website?
It is important that you contact the members of the Senate State, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee and urge them to protect the rights of lawful gun owners during states of emergency by setting a hearing date for Senate Bill 51. Also, please contact the members of the House Judiciary Committee and respectfully urge them to support HB 1094. Contact information for both committees can be found below.
…
Representative Steve King (R-54)
303-866-3068
E-mail: steve.king.house@state.co.us
I kind of agree with the NRA on that one.
On-topic: I doubt they got a nasty e-mail response for their troubles.
As demonstrated via links above, the ‘offending’ item
1) included fields for names, addresses, etc. thus identifying who is and isn’t a constituent (and indeed sent the email to the proper senator based on that info–i.e. if King got it it came from someone claiming to reside in his district, if he has proof otherwise–put up or ST…U) ); and,
2) asked for and included the ability to include one’s own comments, or alter the ‘blast’ text entirely.
(Points #1,2 thus making both of Car31′s points if not moot then severely weakened).
Only if Mr. King produces each and every email he received to show they are in fact identical and none have exclusive or particular information/concerns, can anyone judge the truth of his statement. I will continue to believe that, in fact, several (if not many) included original content, and until Mr. King shows otherwise will not move from that belief.
Since most groups also collect copies and see who/how folks respond, gauging Mr. King’s honesty, should he rise to this challenge and produce substance rather than bloviations–could probably be accomplished with a few phone calls.
Finally, Mr. King was not THE target, but merely–as one of CO’s state sens–a target; yet nary a peep from the others.
Why is Rep. King such a whiner? I though conservatives eschewed a ‘victim mentality.’
King is a cry-baby for responding like that. And a copy of a mass email is, if nothing else, letting the legislator know which side you are on about an issue.
On the flip side, they sure are annoying. I think more often than not they hurt the group involved because they piss off the legislator. I had one Colorado legislator tell me they got 600+ emails in one day on an issue – but would still support it anyways although they really didn’t want to after that.
Blast emails can be a bit overwhelming at times, but once you spot the trend you prepare a canned response.
So far I’ve had 6 of these show up in my inbox, all with the indentical text as those directed to Sen. Steve King. Each has the name and address of the constituent who sent it, and the website that prepared them accurately delivered my constituents’ messages to me.
Sometimes people use these blast emails but vary the text to take the opposite position on the bill. But they can’t control the subject line or much of the standard text, so it’s easy to overlook the one paragraph they got to personalize to express their contrary opinion. On more than one occasion I have sent a standard, prepared reply and then got a firey response accusing me of not bothering to read their contrary opinion buried somewhere within the form letter they used to contact me (which is true – after you see a handful of these you group them by subject line and send each a response, you don’t read the message over and over). To this I have begun a practice of suggesting that if someone has an individualized opinion they’d like to express they shouldn’t use someone else’s form letter to get it to me. So that may be my one petty complaint about blast emails, but they come with the territory.
I also note that in this particular instance, the person submitting the email can edit both the subject line and every bit of text in the prepared statement, linked in a previous post above.
I’ve worked in legislators’ offices here, in DC, and right at No. 10. I also appreciate your willingness to at least give getting back to people a shot.
I think you and I both know that it’s much quicker to hit the delete key. Someone should tell Sen. King. (eye roll)
Did you catch Ellie (iirc) thanking you for being so good at responding? I hope so. You are good at it and should be recognized for it. I’ve never even received a whine from you.
Ms. Mutt Puppy. Black and fuzz ball anyway. Charmer.
it wasn’t a form letter/blast e-mail. It was clear however I wasn’t from his Senate District and did not mention how I was registered to vote which makes his reply doubly appreciated. To date Senator Steadman is still the only response I have had from the JBC regarding the Start Smart Breakfast fund.
On bulk/blast e-mails we had a system when I worked as an assistant: all blast e-mails on the same subject went into an electronic folder with the number and/or title. Letters/cards were similarly grouped with rubber bands on in file folders. Blast e-mail/bulk mail got canned responses but individual letters where the person took the time to write got an individualized reply from my boss.
I’m sorry to say in the last three or four years I have noticed that canned responses from State and Congressional offices is the norm, if you get one at all.
Senator King should have someone help him write his canned responses; they can’t possibly make him sound less petty.
Indeed. Thanks for lending your perspective, Senator.
I adore your hair.
But this is for Senator King.
The bulk emails can be hard to keep up with but seems to me if want to encourage the public to participate in democracy that it is important we respect those contacting us, whether they agree, disagree, spend 1 second or 1 hour on their email. It’s hard enough to urge reluctant people to participate in their own government without being shut down for it.
That Senator King actually cares about participation by people who might disagree with him.
Especially if the person hitting “send” is a constituent.
It used to be said that each contact from a constituent represents ten or twenty people who feel the same way, but haven’t written. A question to anyone able to answer: Is that still considered the case?
A personal call or handwritten (or at least individually composed) letter is the best, most persuasive. Individually composed emails are probably about as good.
Bulk email does a few things–it not only allows constituents to easily contact reps on something they care about (and should have modifiable subject and text so people can tailor it as much as possible); it allows organizations to gauge folks more likely to do more persuasive outreach as well (cultivate activists up, as it were); and it also shows elected officials that folks are organizing in their home turf, meeting folks, raising the bar, paying attention.
But being realistic, Steve King would be just as likely to dismiss a nice hand-written letter on puppy-dog or elk-hunter stationary, if it disagreed with what the GOP leadership tells him he supports, as he to dismiss a few dozen (at most) emails that run contrary to what he is told to believe; that they come from the people he is suppose to be representing as he spends their money on that fancy 90′s ‘do is probably of little concern to him.
of the good senator is very accurate.
I had the rare (like once in 20 yrs.) occasion to attend a high tone soiree at the Grand Junction Country Club as a guest at a realtors’ function. Watching Steve King schmooze his way around a room full of well-heeled Repubs is a thing of beauty…or enough to make you barf…depending on your appreciation of the genre.
Steve is, quite possibly, the worst example of a legislator I have ever known…but then, I don’t know Scott Tipton.
The particular campaign in question was indeed run off the CEC web site, so to answer a few questions here:
1. A fair number of our advocates do personalize these letters, though yes a majority are sent more or less as-is. I think it’s important to highlight here that this is about providing opportunities for citizens to have a voice — given demands on people’s time, I think we should be celebrating that people are getting involved in their local democracies AT ALL.
2. We VERY MUCH invite folks to personalize letters — making both the subject line and letter content fully editable — and have a bold print line on all of our campaigns encouraging people to take advantage of that.
3. Emails only go to the constituents own legislator(s), its restricted such that each person can send only one email, and does arrive labeled with constituent’s name and address.
4. We LOVE for people to get more involved in the process, and have active volunteer programs designed to encourage individuals to do more — make phone calls, write letters, talk to their legislators in person, attend rallies, etc. (More info on this here: http://www.ourcolorado.org/get… ). That said, we don’t have the expectation that everyone who cares about conservation issues in the state has the will or the way to be more actively engaged. The email advocacy campaigns are designed NOT to spam decisionmakers with unwanted emails, but to be a forum through which constituents can express sincere interest on an issue.
Ideally, this serves both to (a) give citizens real access to the process (yay democracy!), and (b) provide legislators information on the values held by their constituents.
5. As someone who does also send these kinds of letters on all kinds of issues I care about, I personally appreciate receiving a note back from my elected official — even if it’s a bit of a canned responses, as long as it speaks to the issue in general and lets me know (a) my letter was tallied, and (b) the decision-maker is informed about and cares about and has an opinion on the issue I think it’s great.
Of course there are many other ways for people who care to engage in ways that are more personalized (and time and energy and information-gathering and -understanding intensive), but ultimately we seek not to pester but to engage and inform.