Putting a stamp on the first day

Posted at 6:49 PM on January 6, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

On the first day of the legislative session, state senators were given their postage budget. Each senator will now be given 5,500 postage stamps.

Assuming there's no special session -- quite an assumption, indeed -- each senator would have to send 57 letters a day between now and the time the session is constitutionally required to end.

A few years ago, the Legislature provided laptops to lawmakers to allow them to better keep in touch with constituents via e-mail.

One senator -- Steve Murphy -- said he needs snailmail to keep in touch with constituents.

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Comments (2)

Wonder if they're forever stamps?.

Posted by rich | January 7, 2009 7:12 AM

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Only 57 per day! That seems pretty low. I know that a majority of the public does not use email every day. The stat's for North American Internet usage is about 73%, of that many don't use email on a daily basis. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm#americas

A house member has about 45,000 people in their district, senate double that. So assuming that 1 stamp per person that is 8%, we all know that people who call or write their elected officials tend to do so several times, looking at 5% or less of population contacted.

I also think that if contacted by email or web forms that most elected officials send a letter also. So really 5500 stamps just does not seem like enough.

Posted by brian hanf | January 7, 2009 8:38 AM

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