4 ms·

California voters, write to your state senator. I'm in San Francisco, and I wrote to Scott Wiener, who recently voted to pass this out of committee. Before tha

California voters, write to your state senator. I'm in San Francisco, and I wrote to Scott Wiener, who recently voted to pass this out of committee. Before that when it was still in the assembly, I wrote to Matt Haney, which didn't do much good because he voted for it both in committee and for passage. But, I feel like bay area legislators need to know many of their constituents know this bill is misguided and are paying attention. The tech capital of the world shouldn't have artificially impaired tools.

jatora 4mo ago
[flagged]
- asveikau 4mo ago
  From what I know about legislators (I am a longtime SF resident but I am also a DC native and have known some congressional staff over the years), it is pretty rare that informed constituents write to them in a cogent and authentic voice about specific legislation, and they do pay attention to this. Calls may work even more. It won't work all the time and how much they do will depend on the issue and why they are supporting it etc. But it's worth a shot. Remember I said: they should know you're paying attention. This can cause them to also pay attention.
  - trinsic2 4mo ago
    Alright, you won me over. I emailed my congressman from the EFF website with my own message. That's the best I can do right now. I just feel like politics is a losing battle. If its taken over by special interests and there doesn't seem like there is any end in sight, as it gets easier and easier for them to sway the people that are actually suppose to be working for us. What is the point? When we are combating legislation that no sane person should have to deal with there comes a time where the whole thing is unlawful and it we should stop investing our power into it.
    - derwiki 4mo ago
      I emailed my representative as well!
- throwitaway222 4mo ago
  This is correct. At this point all constituents believe something like "oh that's just a MAGAT and they don't matter" and throw it in the garbage. I personally think all congress people left or right should be thrown out if they don't personally reply. We're paying them to do this. If many people write about the same issue, they should not have to reply personally, but they should hold a press conference, recorded town hall or issue a statement. We're losing our government and voice to radicalization.
  - asveikau 4mo ago
    My letter opened with the fact that I generally favor reasonable gun laws, then elaborated how this is not that. It's possible that nobody reads it and captures the nuance, but I did spend time to consider the framing. Nobody who actually reads it will think I am an extremist or that I haven't carefully considered the topic.
    - jatora 4mo ago
      99% chance your letter ends up in the shredder without being read
      - asveikau 4mo ago
        By the way I also know for a fact that Scott Wiener's staff reads San Francisco's subreddit. Commenting about Wiener's vote in there will reach his staff. Given the bay area presence here it's also possible somebody "who knows a guy" will even see this thread name-drop him.
        fragmede 4mo ago
        I posted it there. https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1ugs3l5/we_can_still_stop_californias_3d_printer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1ugs3l5/we_ca...
      - culi 4mo ago
        If we're talking written letters, most of these offices at least have staff that read them. I've sorta lobbied before and they don't get quite as much mail as you imagine. And they respond more often than you'd think. Your attitude is pretty prevalent so the chance to write back and change a voter's impression is hard to pass up.
- VortexLain 4mo ago
  It is better to at least do what can be done instead of accepting a defeat without even trying.
  - jatora 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - lern_too_spel 4mo ago
      I've written a state rep and had legislation come out of it. I've written a congressperson and had federal bureaucracy expedite my case out of it. People who think their government is unresponsive generally haven't actually tried asking their government for a response.
      - asveikau 4mo ago
        There seems to be a propaganda thread in the culture now to get people cynical and thinking everything is rigged against you in advance, and a prerequisite to accepting this is to ignore how to the system actually works. The end result is to prevent you from getting involved. You never know if you don't try. As an example (maybe some of the HN audience will dislike the outcome here but the point stands nonetheless), this week two sitting members of Congress were knocked out in New York, and their party told them the previous year to not bother trying.
- jacobolus 4mo ago
  Each congressperson's staff gathers all of the comments they get, counts them up, and reports back to the congressperson, passing along anything they think would be useful information; if you write a clear and careful letter about an obscure topic there's a decent chance the congressperson themself will see it. Congresspeople typically have local ties in their area and caring what their constituents think is their job. It's a serious problem that there are some congresspeople who don't do any local events, send all comments straight to the trash, etc. You should vote those folks out. In the longer term, we should push for significantly increasing the size of the US House of Representatives to 5–10x the current size and implement serious campaign finance reforms. In combination, these will help make congresspeople more responsive to constituents and less reliant on donors.
  - b112 4mo ago
    Not an American, but I've wondered about increasing numbers myself. Certainly, giving each representative fewer citizens to represent could help. I worry about the size of the bodies, however. Too big, and they become less wieldy. Maybe I'm wrong, but I wonder about other solutions. I was thinking of, for example, 10x the number, but each grouping of 10 has a representative, and they each give proxies on votes. Maybe best though of as, junior representatives. It'd allow more direct interaction, and in a sense you'd be electing regional representative staff for each congressperson. I guess there are a lot of ways to handle this, but regardless I overall 100% agree.
    - gpm 4mo ago
      With modern electronics I really don't see why we can't have arbitrary numbers of representatives. In fact I think my preferred system would be representatives get a number of votes equal to the people who voted for them, and anyone can assign anyone as their representative. Gate things like getting speaking time on representing more than x% of the vote, and maybe even have a minimum threshold if we're insisting votes are cast in person for cyber security reasons, but generally the bar for being able to represent people should be low and there shouldn't be winners and losers in elections but just people who represent different numbers of people.
    - 4mo ago
- culi 4mo ago
  So what should we do, then?
  - jcgrillo 4mo ago
    Manufacture a bunch of guns with a lathe instead lmao. Or if they try to take that away, forge weld smoothbore musket barrels the old way with bar stock spiraled around a mandrel. Just make sure you use enough 20 team mule and hear a crack every time, or it could make a mess when you proof it ;)
ctdinjeu4 4mo ago
[dead]
a34729t 4mo ago
It doesnt matter. you know how much campaign financing is tied up with gun control groups? It sucks to lose all your campaign funding and get primaried, right? Wouldn't want that!
chroma 4mo ago
When Wiener ignores these messages, will you vote against him in the next election, even if that means voting republican? Because if not, you can expect more laws like this one. If you want different laws, you need to elect different politicians.
- asveikau 4mo ago
  He is currently in a congressional race. 1 month ago I voted against him, for Saikat Chakrabarti. In November he will face Connie Chan. It's possible that Chan would also support this. She is not in a position to do so now, because she is not voting on state law.

jatora 4mo ago

[flagged]

asveikau 4mo ago
From what I know about legislators (I am a longtime SF resident but I am also a DC native and have known some congressional staff over the years), it is pretty rare that informed constituents write to them in a cogent and authentic voice about specific legislation, and they do pay attention to this. Calls may work even more. It won't work all the time and how much they do will depend on the issue and why they are supporting it etc. But it's worth a shot. Remember I said: they should know you're paying attention. This can cause them to also pay attention.
- trinsic2 4mo ago
  Alright, you won me over. I emailed my congressman from the EFF website with my own message. That's the best I can do right now. I just feel like politics is a losing battle. If its taken over by special interests and there doesn't seem like there is any end in sight, as it gets easier and easier for them to sway the people that are actually suppose to be working for us. What is the point? When we are combating legislation that no sane person should have to deal with there comes a time where the whole thing is unlawful and it we should stop investing our power into it.
  - derwiki 4mo ago
    I emailed my representative as well!
throwitaway222 4mo ago
This is correct. At this point all constituents believe something like "oh that's just a MAGAT and they don't matter" and throw it in the garbage. I personally think all congress people left or right should be thrown out if they don't personally reply. We're paying them to do this. If many people write about the same issue, they should not have to reply personally, but they should hold a press conference, recorded town hall or issue a statement. We're losing our government and voice to radicalization.
- asveikau 4mo ago
  My letter opened with the fact that I generally favor reasonable gun laws, then elaborated how this is not that. It's possible that nobody reads it and captures the nuance, but I did spend time to consider the framing. Nobody who actually reads it will think I am an extremist or that I haven't carefully considered the topic.
  - jatora 4mo ago
    99% chance your letter ends up in the shredder without being read
    - asveikau 4mo ago
      By the way I also know for a fact that Scott Wiener's staff reads San Francisco's subreddit. Commenting about Wiener's vote in there will reach his staff. Given the bay area presence here it's also possible somebody "who knows a guy" will even see this thread name-drop him.
      - fragmede 4mo ago
        I posted it there. https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1ugs3l5/we_can_still_stop_californias_3d_printer/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/1ugs3l5/we_ca...
    - culi 4mo ago
      If we're talking written letters, most of these offices at least have staff that read them. I've sorta lobbied before and they don't get quite as much mail as you imagine. And they respond more often than you'd think. Your attitude is pretty prevalent so the chance to write back and change a voter's impression is hard to pass up.
VortexLain 4mo ago
It is better to at least do what can be done instead of accepting a defeat without even trying.
- jatora 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - lern_too_spel 4mo ago
    I've written a state rep and had legislation come out of it. I've written a congressperson and had federal bureaucracy expedite my case out of it. People who think their government is unresponsive generally haven't actually tried asking their government for a response.
    - asveikau 4mo ago
      There seems to be a propaganda thread in the culture now to get people cynical and thinking everything is rigged against you in advance, and a prerequisite to accepting this is to ignore how to the system actually works. The end result is to prevent you from getting involved. You never know if you don't try. As an example (maybe some of the HN audience will dislike the outcome here but the point stands nonetheless), this week two sitting members of Congress were knocked out in New York, and their party told them the previous year to not bother trying.
jacobolus 4mo ago
Each congressperson's staff gathers all of the comments they get, counts them up, and reports back to the congressperson, passing along anything they think would be useful information; if you write a clear and careful letter about an obscure topic there's a decent chance the congressperson themself will see it. Congresspeople typically have local ties in their area and caring what their constituents think is their job. It's a serious problem that there are some congresspeople who don't do any local events, send all comments straight to the trash, etc. You should vote those folks out. In the longer term, we should push for significantly increasing the size of the US House of Representatives to 5–10x the current size and implement serious campaign finance reforms. In combination, these will help make congresspeople more responsive to constituents and less reliant on donors.
- b112 4mo ago
  Not an American, but I've wondered about increasing numbers myself. Certainly, giving each representative fewer citizens to represent could help. I worry about the size of the bodies, however. Too big, and they become less wieldy. Maybe I'm wrong, but I wonder about other solutions. I was thinking of, for example, 10x the number, but each grouping of 10 has a representative, and they each give proxies on votes. Maybe best though of as, junior representatives. It'd allow more direct interaction, and in a sense you'd be electing regional representative staff for each congressperson. I guess there are a lot of ways to handle this, but regardless I overall 100% agree.
  - gpm 4mo ago
    With modern electronics I really don't see why we can't have arbitrary numbers of representatives. In fact I think my preferred system would be representatives get a number of votes equal to the people who voted for them, and anyone can assign anyone as their representative. Gate things like getting speaking time on representing more than x% of the vote, and maybe even have a minimum threshold if we're insisting votes are cast in person for cyber security reasons, but generally the bar for being able to represent people should be low and there shouldn't be winners and losers in elections but just people who represent different numbers of people.
  - 4mo ago
culi 4mo ago
So what should we do, then?
- jcgrillo 4mo ago
  Manufacture a bunch of guns with a lathe instead lmao. Or if they try to take that away, forge weld smoothbore musket barrels the old way with bar stock spiraled around a mandrel. Just make sure you use enough 20 team mule and hear a crack every time, or it could make a mess when you proof it ;)

ctdinjeu4 4mo ago

[dead]

a34729t 4mo ago

It doesnt matter. you know how much campaign financing is tied up with gun control groups? It sucks to lose all your campaign funding and get primaried, right? Wouldn't want that!

chroma 4mo ago

When Wiener ignores these messages, will you vote against him in the next election, even if that means voting republican? Because if not, you can expect more laws like this one. If you want different laws, you need to elect different politicians.

asveikau 4mo ago
He is currently in a congressional race. 1 month ago I voted against him, for Saikat Chakrabarti. In November he will face Connie Chan. It's possible that Chan would also support this. She is not in a position to do so now, because she is not voting on state law.