Lobby for Amtrak

Since February I have sent may Congressman (Nugent from Florida) about Amtrak. I have received some nice well thought out replies. About two weeks go the Congressman's office even called me about something I said in one of the e-mails and wanted more input. Several days ago while watching C-SPAN, I thought a lot of time was being wasted doing nothing and I called his office and told them so. Well about an hour ago, my phone rang and it was the Congressman's office. Since I had called about wasting time they wanted to know what type issues I thought they should be taking up. I said infrastructure. Then they asked what type. I said rail and in particular Amtrak on the NEC. I pointed out about the $19B for the new tunnels, $1B for the Portal Bridge and $1.5B for the Baltimore tunnel.

If everyone on this forum started contacting their Representatives and Senators and flooding their offices with e-mails to let them know they need to support Amtrak we could get something done. Let them know if something doesn't you might not vote for them the next time. Matter of fact, I've started keeping very close eye on what Nugent supports and votes for. I'm yet to anything that he's done that directly affects his district. He may just have a Republican opponent next year in his primary.

I greatly respect Representative Nugent's willingness to *actually listen and respond*. My Senators are swamped since they represent such a huge state, so I understand when they don't respond personally, and they do have fairly well thought out position papers.

But my corporate-stooge Representative, who has no such excuse, representing a district the same size as Nugent's, doesn't respond at all. His staff doesn't even read the emails he gets; they send out non-responsive form letters which prove that they haven't even read them. There's not much point in trying to talk to a brick wall, and my current Representative seems to be about as intelligent as one. :sigh:

twa904 said:

If everyone on this forum started contacting their Representatives and Senators and flooding their offices with e-mails to let them know they need to support Amtrak we could get something done.

Click to expand...

I have just emailed my new congressman (whose views are very different from mine but who did respond when I emailed him before and who seems to be trying) and asked him to vote against any cuts to Amtrak funding in the bill being considered now. He was elected because people are afraid of being out of work (our huge cranberry juice plant--a large local employer--closed recently) and afraid that the military base nearby will close. I pointed out that Amtrak creates jobs and is actively trying to hire veterans, things both important to people in our district.

I use this an example of targeting what is important to both passenger rail and your elected representative--if there is common ground, it might help to highlight it.