Contact Your Representatives

• United States Representatives
• This http://www.capwiz.com/ website automates sending e-mail to U.S. federal representatives, media and more. (for the nonviolence-minded, the AFSC Action Alerts page is there).
• UK Representatives
• Australian Representatives
• Canadian Representatives (en Francais)
• ...feel free to add your country (click on Edit Text at the bottom of the page)

To find legislative bills, search Thomas: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/c107query.html (the 107 refers to the 107th Congress)

Also see ContactYourMedia

Some issues of interest to me: DepartmentOfPeace (creating it H.R. ????), SchoolOfTheAmericas? (closing it H.R. 1810)

Advice:

Jamie Love, an experienced public-interest lobbyist says this about influencing things (from http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/09/1014241 ):

• People who take the time to be informed are taken more seriously.
• It helps to have some idea of who the decision makers are, and how you can get in touch. Writing a member of Congress an email probably has some effect, but probably not much. Writing a Congressional staff member who is working on an issue is likely to have a much large effect.
• It is rather amazing how much impact public comments have on government bureaucrats, particularly in formal rulemaking and requests for comments. Something more interesting than you might think would be to spend some time searching the federal register on topics you find interesting.
• Letters to the editor in newspapers are underrated, particularly if you target key papers in a member of Congress' hometown. That's a letter they will read!
• If the issue is getting press attention, lobby the press. What reporters or columnists say and think is pretty important.