Principle 7: While individual Members should prioritize engagement with their own constituents, Congress should develop additional venues for public policy participation and engagement.

by Kathy Goldschmidt on April 29, 2022

This is part of a series from our latest report, The Future of Citizen Engagement: Rebuilding the Democratic Dialogue. Over the next few weeks, check back regularly for new posts outlining the principles and featuring accompanying resources, articles, and plans to support them.

Senators and Representatives were elected by the people of a specific geographic location to represent those people in Congress. As a result, they rightly prioritize the views and needs of their constituents above all others in their work. Since lawmakers are bound by duty and practice to focus mostly on their own constituents, however, Congress should create other means for the People to engage with Congress in meaningful and thoughtful ways. There are currently few mechanisms for a concern to be raised to Congress except through an individual's own legislators, who have complete discretion in what issues they pursue.

In our 2021 report The Future of Citizen Engagement: Rebuilding the Democratic Dialogue, we propose ten principles for modernizing and improving the relationship between Congress and the People. All ten will require changes in the constituent engagement culture and practices in both Congress and the organizations that help facilitate grassroots advocacy. The seventh principle is: While individual Members should prioritize engagement with their own constituents, Congress should develop additional venues for public policy participation and engagement.

New approaches to engaging the People in the public policy process should prioritize a Member's constituents while also: providing new venues to allow input into legislative proceedings without requiring a Member as a conduit; reviving the more formal, substantive, and transparent petition process at the chamber level; and/or identifying other means for lessening the burden of high-volume advocacy campaigns to individual Members while also facilitating more meaningful, valuable, and inclusive input into public policy. We discuss many of these concepts in more detail in "Principle 5: Congress Should Provide Additional and Diverse Avenues for Public Participation" and "A Brief History of the First Amendment Right to Petition Government."

The Interparliamentary Union (IPU) also devotes its 2022 Global Parliamentary Report to public engagement in the work of national legislatures. IPU is a global organization established in 1889 and comprised of 178 national parliaments representing 6.5 billion of the 7 billion people in the world. The U.S. Congress is not a member. The periodic Global Parliamentary Reports IPU issues provide a broad look at parliamentary practice around the world, and they provide trends, case studies, and recommendations. The 2022 report is full of extremely helpful information on public engagement and citizen participation, and it includes an annex with extensive case studies, lessons learned, and guidance for implementing best practices (PDF). The core recommendations around which IPU bases their report, however, are that parliaments increase interest and engagement in their work by being:

  • Strategic. Embed a culture of engagement throughout parliament for a united effort toward broader and better public participation.
  • Inclusive. Ensure that parliament is accessible to everyone.
  • Participatory. Encourage the People to participate in every step of the process, from agenda-setting to influencing the issues taken up by parliament.
  • Innovative. Be creative in the approaches to engage, involve, and inspire the People's participation in public policy.
  • Responsive. Listen to feedback from the People and continually improve parliament's ability to meet their expectations.

Integrating the People into every step of the public policy process through well-thought out, manageable, and truly integral ways has the possibility of revitalizing trust in Congress. It can also enable Congress to tackle the issues that matter with less polarization and more collaboration, and it can reduce the amount of administrative work required of each office to manage mass email campaigns by providing alternative outlets. Doing so, however, will require the concerted effort of Members and staff to envision and implement new ways of doing things that better facilitate Congress' very purpose of representing the American people in lawmaking and public policy.

Principle into Practice:

  • Members of Congress should provide language on their websites explaining why they prioritize constituents.
  • Members of Congress should use channels of communication and tools that verify and indicate constituents.
  • Congress should encourage and develop tools to facilitate productive public engagement with the institution and committees, apart from constituents' individual interactions with their Members of Congress.

Additional Resources

 
citizen engagement, congressional operations, constituents