How does Congress makes laws? Can you play a role in what kind of laws they make?

Aleah: How does Congress makes laws? Can you play a role in what kind of laws they make?
Can you like, contact them and suggest a law or something? What do people do to help congress make laws?

Answers and Views:

Answer by George L
watch this video it explains it all

Answer by Terry
The primary activity you have is voting. You vote for people who will represent your views. You won’t get an exact match between what you want and what the candidate wants, so you have to find the best match to your views.

You can also lobby your two state Senators by contacting them in writing or by phone – and you can do the same with your state representatives in the house. Find your senators here: https://www.senate.gov/ and your representatives here https://www.house.gov/

They don’t listen to individuals, but when they hear the same thing from several hundred people, they do start listening.

Answer by james
well, firstly the say we have is in VOTING
sure, you can write letters. google your congressman, contact him/her (the email address is probably online) and hope s/he reads it. might not get past his/her secretary though

Answer by Vejay S
School House Rock over simplifies. The most efficient way is to attend your Precinct Conventions after the elections on election night. There you can submit resolutions to be sent to a committee that will form the party’s platform. (Each resolution is called a plank.) At your precinct level you have the chance to represent your precinct at the County or Senatorial District Convention/caucus. This will be like the precinct level except larger. The Resolutions committee will address the proposed resolutions, and form their platform that will, if passed by the general assembly, will go to the State resolutions committee. If you resolution is voted against or disregarded you can resubmit it at each level by the way. At the county level you will need to get the fellow delegates from your precinct to represent them at state, or you can run at large. State is just like county and precinct level caucuses/conventions. Pass resolutions and elect members to national. National same as before.

Some other things they do at these conventions are indirectly support candidates, the people at the national convention will pick the party nominee. If for instance all of Arkansas people sent Huckabee supporters to national he might get a few votes still and you can undermine the popular vote like this. They also organize the grassroots at this level, and you can meet different politicians that will pander to you. If you really care about the resolution, try to get on the comittee. By the time the platform gets to the general assembly all of the proposed resolutions are disregarded and you end up passing the platform from the previous year as is. It could actually take a decade worth of involvement to change anything but do not give up.

If you plan on going learn Roberts Rules of Order though.

This is more specific to the Republican party of Texas and can vary from state to state and party to party. Of course voting and calling your representatives is one way of doing it, but who would have more clout a person who has never met the rep or someone who is active in their political parties.