Jessica Craven's DC Trip: Our Calls MATTER!

Jessica Craven is an activist, organizer, and the author of Chop Wood Carry Water Daily Actions. She's a political content creator and Co-host of the Practivist Pod.

It’s good to be home. I’ll try to process the conference a little bit and tell you about it over the days ahead, but one thing I do want to tell you for sure right now is that your calls are making a HUGE difference.

Author Jessica Craven in D.C.

How do I know? Well, yesterday a group of us went over to the Capitol to do interviews with House reps. It was a bit of a “speed dating” situation—each of us was scheduled to speak with 5 different members for about ten minutes each in rapid succession. We filmed all of it, with the idea that we could make content to post on social media. It was fun, interesting, and totally exhausting. All of us were shooting in one big auditorium so it was low-level chaos the whole time.

Crazy, right?

I’m not sure how much usable footage I got out of my “dates” with these MOCs—hopefully some!—but one thing I can tell you for sure is this: I asked each, at the end of our conversations, whether constituents’ calls really mattered. Each answered, with enormous exuberance and authenticity, “YES!”

They all went on to tell me, in various ways, that calls were always important, but that right now they were making all of the difference. They said things like “We’re seeing cracks!” and “they’re running scared!” They told me how pressured—in a good way—Republicans were feeling by their voters. They said your demands that they not cut Medicaid were working. We’re not done yet, they told me, but they’re really feeling the heat. It’s having a huge impact. Please tell your readers to keep it up.

My biggest takeaway of all was that—as trite as it may sound—these lawmakers really cared. They’re all obviously working hard to ring alarm bells for the American people while simultaneously doing all they can to push back on Republicans’ attacks. They came to talk to us because they’re desperate to get the word out about what’s happening and they’ve come to understand that, like it or not, they’ve got a better chance of doing that by talking to content creators than by getting on cable news. Good! I’m so glad they’re trying new things!

We tend to focus on the awful members of Congress. Today I offer a shout out to the many members who are absolutely breaking their backs trying to save our country. Some of them, like Reps Courtney and Magaziner, were unknown to me before this week. Few of us can name every single Democratic lawmaker in Congress. But it’s good to know that, workhorse or showhorse, the majority of them are laboring in good faith for their constituents, trying to adapt to rapidly changing times, and attempting to think outside of the box to save democracy. We should thank them for it.

Also? Your calls matter so very, very much! We got it straight from the horse’s mouth this week!