Politicians don't like distractions. If support for some legislation will end up causing distractions, especially during campaign season, they will take notice.
The best distractions come from primary challenges directly attributable to their stances on issues, but even having hecklers show up to campaign events can work.
The right has been using primary threats for a long time to keep politicians in line. I suspect we could be effective using this strategy as well if we put our energy where our mouth is.
It's not a matter of distraction, it's a matter of support and influence and money.
If you can convince a politician that a sizeable percentage of influential people who are liable to donate money to a cause are for or a against a particular issue that that they are legislating on, preferably people who are from within his/her riding/ward/district and thus directly impact him/her.
Say, like well connected, high earning (mostly white, male) nerds. If you stop to think about the amount of power we are actually capable of wielding, it's actually really shocking that msft/goog/aapl etc seem to have really crappy lobbyists.
Check out that podcast I linked. Short of running as or supporting your own candidate, it's kind of how politicians are swayed in any democracy.
If you walked up to a representative and say, "I have these many thousands of members in your constituency, all of whom manage or work in large companies or other institutions and we suggest you do this or that" then that politician is likely to take notice.
The sad part is money is often required to grease all of those wheels, from simply getting private quality time with your rep (see that lobbying podcast) to paying someone to have the time to write up policy recommendations and collect member names and so on so forth.
> If you walked up to a representative and say, "I have these many thousands of members in your constituency, all of whom manage or work in large companies or other institutions and we suggest you do this or that" then that politician is likely to take notice.
Nope. He'd say "you and everyone else who talks with me".
Most House members represent about 720k people. (310M/435 and small states get at least one regardless of population.) On almost any issue, there are "thousands" of people on both sides.
The best distractions come from primary challenges directly attributable to their stances on issues, but even having hecklers show up to campaign events can work.
The right has been using primary threats for a long time to keep politicians in line. I suspect we could be effective using this strategy as well if we put our energy where our mouth is.