House calls make a difference.

Twenty-seven years ago, as our family drove our U-Haul around the horrific and notoriously congested (even then) Washington Beltway, I had no conception of the workings of Congress. All I knew was that my mentor, the man who taught my masters in journalism program, the late Paul Simon, had asked me to join him in moving to Washington to "write and do research in my office."

Simon at the time has just been reelected to serve his second term as a Democratic congressman. He later became a distinguished member of the Senate.

As a newspaper reporter, I knew a lot about both writing and researching. I even knew, or thought I did, something about the legislative process as I had covered the Illinois legislature for a few years for a small daily newspaper in central Illinois.

When my wife told one of our new neighbors that I was a "legislative assistant" to a member of Congress, she heard in response, "Oh, legislative assistants are a dime a dozen."

That knocked me down a few notches.

Legislative Learning

Eventually I learned about a "markup," when a bill is brought before the subcommittee to which it has been assigned for action. This markup--a term that stems from days when any changes made by a committee were written or marked onto the actual bill document--represents the first step up the congressional ladder for any legislation that hopes to eventually become law.

In 2002, just 241 bills were signed into law out of nearly 4,300 introduced by House and Senate members, meaning that the average Mr. Smith-Goes-to-Washington member of Congress has about a 5 percent chance that any bill he or she introduces will ever reach the desk of the president.

When former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean blasted Sen. John Kerry during one of those Democratic presidential debates several months ago for not having any of his bills passed by Congress, Kerry pointed out correctly that while a legislator's bill may not go far in the convoluted process in Washington, his or her idea that was the kernel of that bill can, with determination and fortitude, be included in someone else's bill that may be signed into law.

Pressure Points

Many of your own House and Senate members try to respond to concerns back home by introducing bills on this or that "home issue" (for us, it's education), while knowing that if they fail to pursue it with their colleagues, that introduced bill will just sit in some file cabinet and never see the light of day. Sure, it's cynical, but I'm afraid that's often how Congress works.

Most members of the House and Senate count on you not knowing any of this, so they can write you letters that sound so sincere by talking about their bill or how they co-sponsored someone else's bill (one they know will never move) as a way of making you think they care about the subject of your letter.

Members of Congress get stacks and stacks of letters each day. And, in this new electronic world, their e-mail accounts receive thousands of messages every day.

What makes a member of Congress sit up and take notice is when someone who's written previously about S 1248, for example, writes again to inquire about the status of the bill and how Mr. Congressman or Ms. Senator plans to vote on an S 1248 amendment that you'd mentioned in your last letter or e-mail.

That amendment may be the only thing you, as a professional educator, care about in Congress. The underlying bill (in this case, S 1248 is the bill to renew the special education law) has a lot of things you care about, but there is one amendment--this year it's known as the Hagel/Harkin mandatory full funding of IDEA amendment--that you feel strongest about getting passed.

When you get a kind of non-committal response to your letter or e-mail, that's the signal to write again.

Unless pestered, senators and House members find it easy to brush aside most letters with a standard reply: "Thanks for letting me know your views. I will certainly take them into consideration as S 1248 makes its way to the floor."

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, have co-authored the full funding amendment to the IDEA bill. Their collaboration is an example of the complex, internal legislative action to which Kerry was referring.

Vote Influence

As a dime-a-dozen legislative assistant, I had no idea about legislative networks and timing--unless it was in the form of thousands of form letters with photocopied signatures. I just knew that you pay attention to someone who's written enough to get to know you. In a business where the constituent is king, no "L.A.," as they're called, can ever ignore multiple letters from the same constituent.

The more you write, the more the elected official knows someone is watching from back home. If dozens of others in their constituency seem to be writing on the same matter, then a legislative assistant makes certain his or her boss knows. Then you can be sure your federal representative has your views in mind before casting the vote you care about. The more a politician cares about your election day vote, the more attention that politico will pay when casting his or her floor votes in Washington.

Nick Penning is AASA senior policy analyst. E-mail: [e-mail]