16 replies to this topic

[Molly B.]

You can find what legislative/congressional district you are in and who your elected officials are
by clicking on Illinois State Board of Elections.

[Sigma]

I'm sure everyone has been in contact with their elected officials urging them to support HB 148
If you are not comfortable writing a letter or even calling, we are here to help. Every elected official must be contacted via every avenue.

If you would like to contact your official and would like talking points or a predrafted letter that you can add your name to let us know.

[rock4xfab]

Do we have a prewritten letter to send to our representatives?? I would like to do so if we have something to send. I am also trying to find out exactly which reps we contact for our area. I tryed the zip+4 lookup but not sure if it it worked corectly.

Scott

[abolt243]

rock4xfab, on 13 February 2012 - 04:52 PM, said:

Do we have a prewritten letter to send to our representatives?? I would like to do so if we have something to send. I am also trying to find out exactly which reps we contact for our area. I tryed the zip+4 lookup but not sure if it it worked corectly.

Scott

Scott,

PM me your residence address and I'll get the names for you, or your zip + 4 will work too.

Tim

[Blaster]

The State Board of Elections website has turned off the District/Official Search-By Address. It takes you to a link to make a phone call to the Board of Elections.

Lets try this. Go to link then click on Illinois. http://thomas.loc.go...gislatures.html

404 not found.

[Elderberry]

http://www.capwiz.co...ction=chgaddr#0

This one is still working...  It's the NRA's.  That should keep some political hack from TURNING IT OFF...!!!!!


Edit:  It is very interesting that it was turned off not long after Todd's original post.  I posted not long after Todd.  At that time I alerted my "gun guys" list, some of whom are not real political so I sent them Molly's link and said "look up your reps and contact them NOW -- phone, email, personal visit" ---  but before I sent the note I checked the link and it was working.  A half hour later one of them called me and said "hey, knothead, your link doesn't work" -- sure enough, it had been turned off....

Am I paranoid or was that intentional...????

Edited by Elderberry, 31 December 2012 - 05:46 PM.

[Sam_Lowry]

Has anyone composed a standard message we might use when contacting our reps? I'm afraid that I'm a bit too angry   to write anything at the moment and could use some help with this. Thanks in advance.

[FarmHand357]

Sam_Lowry, on 02 January 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

Has anyone composed a standard message we might use when contacting our reps? I'm afraid that I'm a bit too angry   to write anything at the moment and could use some help with this. Thanks in advance.

When I call, I'm using the verbiage below.  I try to keep it short and sweet.  I identify myself and ask for the following message to be passed along to my rep, senator, Cullerton, Madigan:


"Thank you for your past support of gun owners’ rights (this is only for my legislators).

I'm contacting you to express my firm opposition to any upcoming anti-firearms legislation.  It's my understanding that Senate President Cullerton will attempt to pass a semiautomatic firearm ban and a magazine ban in the lame-duck session.

Millions of law-abiding citizens who have commonly used firearms and magazines should not be blamed and penalized for the horrific actions of a mentally disturbed individual.

Thank you for passing along my message."



When I fax and email, I've been using the following:

Dear Senator XXXX;

Thank you for your past support of gun-owners’ rights.  I've been informed that Senate President John Cullerton will attempt to pass a semiautomatic firearm ban and a magazine ban when the Senate reconvenes for their lame-duck session in early January.

As a safe and conscientious gun owner, I ask you to please oppose any anti-firearm legislation put forth.

When one mentally disturbed man commits a horrible act, we should not be blaming lawfully owned, commonly used firearms and ammunition magazines belonging to folks who didn’t do it.

Sincerely,

XXXX

P.S.  For your reading pleasure, I’ve appended a portion of noted firearms authority Massad Ayoob’s article on “Why Good People Need Semiautomatic Firearms and “High Capacity” Magazines” below:

Americans have historically modeled their choices of home protection and personal defense handguns on what the cops carried.  When the police carried .38 revolvers as a rule, the .38 caliber revolver was the single most popular choice among armed citizens.  In the 1980s and into the 1990s, cops switched en masse to semiautomatic pistols.  So did the gun-buying public.  Today, the most popular handgun among police seems to be the 16-shot, .40 caliber Glock semiautomatic.  Not surprisingly, the general public has gone to pistols bracketing that caliber in power (9mm, .40, .45) with similar enthusiasm. The American police establishment has also largely switched from the 12 gauge shotgun which was also the traditional American home defense weapon, to the AR15 patrol rifle with 30-round magazine…and, not surprisingly, the law-abiding citizenry has followed suit there, too.

The reasoning is strikingly clear. The cops are the experts on the current criminal trends. If they have determined that a “high capacity” semiautomatic pistol and a .223 semiautomatic rifle with 30-round magazines are the best firearms for them to use to protect people like me and my family, they are obviously the best things for us to use to protect ourselves and our families.

http://backwoodshome...gazines-part-i/

Edited by FarmHand357, 02 January 2013 - 02:36 PM.

[usmcss]

Hey guys, would like some clarification. When contacting officials, we are not only contacting our Rep. but also other Reps. correct? I would contact my district Rep. for my party and also the other party for that district? Not only my district but other districts as well?

Just curious as I was thinking if I contact a Rep, that is not in my district they really wouldn't care about my opinion?

Just trying to understand this a little better. Really sad after all these years of life I don't have it down!!!

Thanks! And thank you to all the people on here who have fought to protect my Right to be able to protect my family and myself!!! I can't Thank You enough!!!!!

[C0untZer0]

i contact my own representatives on any important legislation, I also contact legislators who sit on any committees that legislation might be in, and occasionally I will contact the sponsor of a bill.

[C0untZer0]

I wrote to the webmaster at Il Board State of Elections (webmaster@elections.il.gov) and I got a reply that said

" Sorry for the delay we will be back up and running as soon as possible with the new application.  It can be found at http://gis.elections.il.gov this will currently show you the district numbers but not the contact information for officials until the system is brought up to speed."

When I click on that link I get prompted to install Microsoft Silverlight.  I tried going to that sight in Mozilla and still got prompted to install Silverlight.

Just a heads up to everyone...

[C0untZer0]

It really bothers me that the IL Board of Elections still does not have their Legislator Lookup function working on their website.

http://gis.elections...er/default.aspx

I wrote to the webmaster again this morning asking for an ETA.

It bugs me because there are many many private websites out there where I can look up my legislators, and those sites are free for me to use, but the one site that I'm actually being forced to pay for because they're taking money out of my paycheck - is the Illinois Board of Elections website and that's the one that doesn't work.

Typical government incompetency and inefficiency

Does anyone remember the NRA gizmo site look up?

I have a feeling that the IL Board of Elections is not going to have their act together and have their web app functioning by the time we need to start writing our legislators to support the IL carry bill.

[RacerDave6]

http://www.capwiz.co...iew=myofficials

[Lou]

There is a smartphone app called Illinois Government that works pretty good plus it's written by an IC member.

The drawback is it relies on info from the ILGA website.

[C0untZer0]

I spoke to Kevin Turner, Division of Information Technology for the Illinois State Board of Elections.  He said the app is 7 days away from going online - looking at Feb 11th, which is probably a little too late for people to use to lookup their election officials now for our carry bill.

He also said he's gotten "thousands" of calls about the legislator lookup fuction no longer being available.

[cls74]

This is up and running now. A bit awkward as it's an interactive map and snail pace slow.

[C0untZer0]

It really slowed down from the last time I used it, I wonder if it's because people are actually hitting it now?

I know that any type of mapping system has to have fairly fast servers behind it.

I'm also starting to get errors when it runs slow - the results some times time out.

But it's still neat to be able to see your jerrymandered districts  

http://gis.elections...te/default.aspx