Each congressperson's staff gathers all of the comments they get, counts them up, and reports back to the congressperson, passing along anything they think would be useful information; if you write a clear and careful letter about an obscure topic there's a decent chance the congressperson themself will see it. Congresspeople typically have local ties in their area and caring what their constituents think is their job.
It's a serious problem that there are some congresspeople who don't do any local events, send all comments straight to the trash, etc. You should vote those folks out.
In the longer term, we should push for significantly increasing the size of the US House of Representatives to 5–10x the current size and implement serious campaign finance reforms. In combination, these will help make congresspeople more responsive to constituents and less reliant on donors.
It's a serious problem that there are some congresspeople who don't do any local events, send all comments straight to the trash, etc. You should vote those folks out.
In the longer term, we should push for significantly increasing the size of the US House of Representatives to 5–10x the current size and implement serious campaign finance reforms. In combination, these will help make congresspeople more responsive to constituents and less reliant on donors.