Nick O’Neill says his wife woke him at an “ungodly hour” one recent morning. The app the couple founded, 5 Calls, was melting down under a crush of people contacting their members of Congress.
A flurry of White House executive orders and overhauls of federal bureaucracy are making civic engagement great again. People are trading tips on social media about 5 Calls and other apps that help them express their views to elected representatives - and they’re jamming Congress’s phone lines.
While online campaigns spurring calls (or faxes) to lawmakers aren’t new, this surge of congressional contact is on another level.
“They are absolutely being overwhelmed by the volume of calls,” said Anne Meeker, deputy director of Popvox Foundation, a nonpartisan group focused on social and technology changes in citizen engagement.
Experienced congressional staffers have been enlisted to take calls, which is usually a task for junior staff or interns, Meeker said.
The popularity of 5 Calls shows that Americans used to the ease of apps like Uber Eats are bringing those expectations to their interactions with elected officials. Government-contact apps and social media let people quickly channel anger into action, and turbocharge it by asking others to do the same.
Overcoming phone shyness
O’Neill and his wife, Rebecca Kaufman, started 5 Calls eight years ago at the beginning of the first Trump administration. The app offers suggested scripts on liberal policy priorities and lets you tap to dial numbers of your congressional representatives.
The app has had previous popularity surges, such as during Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, but the new Trump administration has set usage records.
O’Neill said that roughly 700,000 calls to Congress were made through the app in the past week. On some days since Donald Trump took office, 5 Calls has been among the most downloaded iPhone apps in the United States, according to research firm Sensor Tower. And in a recent Instagram story, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) urged people to “hop on 5 Calls.”
Leslie Gaar, a 45-year-old writer in Austin, said she has used the 5 Calls app to make a dozen or more calls to her members of Congress to protest the Elon Musk-led push to cut jobs and programs at government agencies. (O’Neill said that has been the top topic by far for people using 5 Calls.)
“I don’t even want to order a pizza” by phone, Gaar said, but 5 Calls made it easy to dial up lawmakers. She is also following 5 Calls social media posts with the numbers of calls made through the app. “That especially made me feel like I was making a difference,” Gaar said.
Meeker said that from her conversations with congressional staff, many calls are from people furious about Trump administration actions or asking for personal help with government funding freezes. Supporters of the administration also are calling lawmakers to urge them to approve Trump’s Cabinet nominees.
Meeker said elected officials are coming to terms with ways that technology can boost, or potentially undermine, their relationships with voters.
Some organizations have promising technology-aided ideas to improve constituent town halls, which tend to be poorly attended and dominated by a few loud voices. On the flip side, Meeker said technology can erode lawmakers’ trust in public input. One group used AI-generated voices in calls to legislators that sounded like children who died as a result of gun violence.
Tips for outreach to lawmakers
It’s not necessarily true that phone calls are more effective than emails. Meeker said congressional staffers log constituent calls, voicemails and emails into the same software system. Citizens’ opinions from each method are relayed to members of Congress. “There really is no distinction,” she said.
If you email, 5 Calls suggests not using its scripts intended for phone calls because they can seem canned and impersonal in emails.
Manage your expectations. Don’t expect your call to change your legislator’s mind, but “these calls work in volume,” O’Neill said.
Consider your call as a start, not the end. Meeker said apps like 5 Calls are a great first step for consistent and deepening contact with elected officials about what matters to you. “Be willing to put that time into that relationship,” she said.
Do some homework. Meeker suggested tailoring your message to the committees on which your members of Congress serve or bills they have sponsored. If your senator is on a finance committee, for example, you might talk to them about local economic effects of White House policies.
Make it about more than you. Meeker was a congressional staff member for about three years. When someone called for help with a mix-up in their veterans benefits, it stood out when the caller wanted to make sure no one else was hurt by the problem. “I was always so moved by that sentiment,” she said.
If you go in person, call ahead. For security reasons, many legislators’ local offices don’t allow visitors unless they have an appointment.
Congress members’ Washington offices are open to the public, with security restrictions, but Meeker said you might want to call ahead anyway - if only to arrange a guided tour of the U.S. Capitol by congressional staff. “It’s an awesome experience,” Meeker said.