You’ve expressed your outrage at President Trump’s and his Administration’s actions as part of a No Kings Day or similar protest. You probably feel energized from being around others who share your views and proud you acted. Wonderful! Now you might be asking what else can I do?

Advice from the Congressional Management Foundation

According to the Congressional Management Foundation‘s research paper, Citizen-Centric Advocacy: The Untapped Power of Constituent Engagement, here are the most powerful ways to influence a congressional representative or senator:

Advice from a 30-year Veteran of Constituent Lobbying

As a constituent, I’ve lobbied my MOCs for over 30 years. Here’s my advice in converting the energy and morale boost you got from protesting to more directly influencing your MOCs. I’ve successfully used all these actions:

• arrange a meeting with your members of Congress (MOCs)
• email your MOCs
• mail a letter to your MOCs
• attend a town hall meeting
• call your MOCs
• write a letter to the editor of a local newspaper

If you don’t know who your MOCs are, see ‘How to Identify your Congressional Representative and Senators’ on my The 10 Most Powerful Ways to Influence Politicians page.

These actions may sound intimidating, but remember as a constituent, you’re your MOCs’ hiring manager. Your representative applied for the position of representing you and the 700,000 or so people living in your congressional district in the House of Representatives. Your senators applied for the position of representing your state and its people in the Senate. You and your fellow citizens — at least those who actually vote! — decide whether to rehire or fire them at the end of their term.

If you think your one vote doesn’t make a lot of difference, you’re right. Elections aren’t decided by one or two votes. But when you tell your MOCs what you want them to do by using one (or more!) of the actions, you’re elevating your political power beyond hiring them. Now, you’re directly telling the people who have the Constitutional power and responsibility to implement the changes you want in the Federal government. That includes using the Constitution’s built-in checks and balances to stop abuses of power by President Trump and his administration.

For all the ways below to influence your MOCs and their staff, be sure to include some kind of “call to action”. The call to action is one or more specific things you want your MOCs to do. The more specific the request is, the better. For example, asking them to vote yes on a particular legislative bill, e.g., H.R.4444 – Student Loan Bankruptcy Improvement Act of 2025 is better than asking your MOCs to support student loans. Remember, there are often many bills with conflicting and/or overlapping goals and language.

Note: H.R.4444 is a real bill in the House of Representatives. It got its number by being the 4,444th bill introduced in the 119th Congress (2025-2026). Do your MOCs a favor, and of the thousands of bills introduced in Congress each year, tell them which ones you want them to support or oppose. I know from experience, MOCs are lousy mind readers, and even with staff, they’re sometimes unaware a bill exists. In the Senate, bills are prefixed by “S”, e.g., S.3221 Expanding Health Care Options for First Responders Act.

Specific Actions You Can Do to Influence Congress

Below are some tips from my 30 years’ experience lobbying MOCs as a constituent. For whatever it’s worth, I’ve never been a paid lobbyist. Based on the Congressional Management Foundation’s research above, however, as a constituent, my actions have had more influence.

Arrange a Meeting with One or More of Your Members of Congress (MOCs)

As the Congressional Management Foundation’s research above indicates, this is the most powerful thing you can do to influence your MOCs. Go to your MOC’s websites and call either the national or a local district office. Tell the person who answers you’re a constituent and you want schedule a face-to-face meeting with their boss (i.e, your MOC. If they say that’s not possible, ask to meet face-to-face with an aide.

Meeting with aides is sometimes more important than meeting with your MOC, since aides are the gatekeepers to their boss, and they have a lot of control over what information your MOC receives. Remember, like their boss, aides also work for you — if you fire their boss, their boss fires them.

An aide called the scheduler is the one who schedules meetings with the MOC. In my experience, the aides schedule their own meetings, but the scheduler or someone else on staff can direct you to which aide you should contact. Since COVID, meetings are often done via Zoom or other video meeting platform. Face-to-face video meetings are a step down from in-person meetings, but better than letters and phone calls.

You can meet with your MOC at one of their district offices during Congressional recesses or weekends, at their District of Columbia office, or at any of their local events. I once met with an MOC as he was leaving his booth as a local, community fair was ending, and I lobbied him as we walked to his car for him to be driven to his next engagement.

If possible, have several like-minded folks, ideally constituents but not required, join your meeting. A group of people urging an MOC to do something is stronger than one person. It’s also an opportunity for you to share your growing advocacy with others.

Email your MOC

All the MOC websites I’ve ever seen have some kind of Contact page. That page usually has an option to open an email form to send a message to the MOC. Here’s an example:

Often the form will verify you’re a constituent of the MOC based your address and only allow constituents to successfully submit emails. Be sure to enter information for all required fields and write your message. If you want, you can write your message outside the form and paste it into the message field. Try to keep your message focused on one general topic. You can always submit additional emails for other topics.

Mail a Letter to your MOC

Use your MOC’s website’s Contact page to identify the mailing addresses for their DC and district/state offices. Print out your letter — for extra impact, handwrite the letter — and snail mail the letter to one of the addresses. If you mail to a district/state office, that office will relay the letter, or at least your support for or against something, to the DC office.

Attend a Town Hall Meeting

If your MOC holds in-person, online, or telephone town hall meetings, go to them. You’ll probably have to sign up for your MOC’s newsletter or join one of their social media pages to get announcements of upcoming town hall meetings. You can also check out the Town Hall Project || Find a Town Hall Near you website.

Town halls are a great opportunity to hear what your MOC and community have to say about topics and to publicly ask your MOC to support or oppose something. Be aware you might need to submit your question to an organizer before the meeting. Try to begin your question by thanking your MOC for something they’d done. If you can’t think of anything, you can always thank them for having a town hall. Not all MOCs do, and whatever you think of your MOC, it’s commendable they’re at least trying to hear from their constituents.

Call your MOC

Use your MOC’s website (see a pattern?) to discover their DC and district/state offices telephone numbers. If you call after hours, you’ll likely avoid talking to person and be invited to leave a recorded message. Calling the DC office is the fastest way to share your position on a topic with your MOC. Give your name, phone number, city, state and a concise request. Example, “My name is Ben Franklin. My phone number is 202-555-5555, I live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I want you to vote to support Constitutional Amendment One to protect First Amendment rights.”

One or more of your MOC’s staffers will listen to recorded messages or listen to live callers and tally constituent support and opposition on topics.

Write a Letter to the Editor of a Newspaper

It may sound old-fashioned, but when a newspaper, or any media outlet, publishes your message, it amplifies how many people read what you want to share. If you include your MOC’s name, there’s a good chance, one of your MOC’s staff, will share your letter with their boss. In a way, getting a letter published that mentions your MOC’s name doubles your impact — it’s like writing a letter to your MOC and sharing your opinion with other constituents.

Of course, getting a letter published can be difficult. A few ways to increase your letter’s publication chances are to “hook” your letter to something (an article, editorial, op-ed, letter to the editor, or news article) that was recently published, something that just happened or is about to happen in the community (e.g., recent protests, or an annual day like Mother’s Day), or some legislation that Congress is or will soon be working on. Be aware, newspapers have varying word limits for how long a letter can be. Common limits are 150 and 250 words.

Want More Help?

I could write one or more articles about each of the actions above, but if you’d like more tips, go to Lobbying How To’s – RESULTS. For over 45 years, RESULTS has been training regular people how to connect with and increase their political power. Their How To’s are best practices of constituent-based lobbying based on decades of practice. They’re what allows the organization to convert each dollar of donations into $2,000 of federal investment in programs helping people lift themselves out of poverty.

So let me finish with a call to action for you. Use one or more of the actions with each of your MOCs. Tell them what you would have told them if you saw them at your protest. If they support your view, thank them and ask them to keep fighting for you and your beliefs. If they oppose your view, share how their actions are hurting you and that you’ll hold them accountable.