Emails

Much good advice. And I did use snail mail when providing Governor Richardson with my very valuable free advice. But recently I was involved in a "cards and letters" campaign in Nevada for the Nevada Northern museum. Using email I was able to cover every member of the relevent legislative committee very efficiently, addresses could be copied right out of the legislative website. Some easy cut and paste with occasional editing to personalize it. I was surprised at the number of personal responses I got...personal in the sense that they addressed the specific issues I had raised in my emails so they weren't just form letters. Some were even thoughtful, including one from the Committee chairwoman. So the emails got read by the staff, which is all you can hope for even with snail mail. And this was despite the fact I was a Californian, not a constituent. Also the Nevada legislature posts a tally by bill of the number of emails recieved, which is a rather obvious barometer of public interest in any bill. Easy to do with emails. I would not discount the importance of emails, although it could be very different from state to state.
JBW