Check out the Congressional Management Foundation's report on improving communications with elected officials. They've extended their deadline to July 28th (so ignore the fact that it says "comment by July 18th.") Any grassroots advocacy efforts that struggles with getting messages that have an impact through to your elected officials, this is the perfect opportunity to do something about it! At a minimum, it should be a very cathartic experience.
Also, I read on the Sunlight Foundation's blog about a really interesting visual representation of campaign contributions based on information from OpenSecrets.org. Those who put it together created a depiction of a notice board, such as one might see in a local store or community center, with notes on each "flyer" about the contributions from that sector of the economy.
I think this bulletin board really shows the bewildering array of interests that contribute to election campaigns. Sure, that's not necessarily immediately comforting -- but imagine if you were a legislator who was constantly bombarded with messages from all these folks. Seems to me that instead of having industries that are easily able to "buy and sell" legislators, you might be stuck instead with an unfocused and pretty confusing mess.
Hmmm, sounds like our electoral process.
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