Search on the internet and you can find it. Opencongress and thomas are good sites to track federal legislation.

Brettski beat me in listing IL Senators. On just about every important issue, you can rest assured that our Illinois Senators will be on the WRONG side of it. I don't think they are particularly interested in hearing opposing views either; but it never hurts to share our opinion. I've done that a lot.

Contact guidelines: Be courteous. Be direct. Be succinct. Don't threaten. Do reference specific legislation (include bill numbers if possible). Do double check spelling / grammar; but don't let concern about that prevent you from contacting them. In all likelihood, your letter will have a generic response and the gist of it will amount to a plus or minus regarding support or opposition to a bill. Get to know them, if possible. Never totally trust that they know about the legislation or what impact it has. They may have just a few minutes to review over a thousand page bill. Contact them - even if they are almost as bad as those from Illinois.

One former legislative leader in Illinois told a group of us one time about the cockroach theory and why he (and many of his friends) hated the NRA so much.

The cockroach theory goes something like... No one (politicians) really cares or thinks about the cockroaches (voters) much as they go about their daily business. If you see one or two (get contacted by one or two voters), you think "no big deal". If you start seeing more (getting more contacts), you start thinking there is a bunch of others and worry.

The guy was really anti-gun and hated the NRA (and obviously didn't know all his audience members very well); but was reluctant to push for anti-gun legislation because the (water holding structure) NRA would get enough cockroaches upset that you'd wind up on the street trying to find a real job.

Maybe pondmeisters need to make like cockroaches and create a PAC?

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