Stance

Signal boost from Jen Hofmann's Action Checklist (another of those useful weekly reminder lists to help stay aware of useful little things you can do) -- there's an interesting little app out now called Stance, which is specifically there to make it a little easier to call your congressional rep. It's nothing more than a smart message-forwarder, but that's still useful: you use the app to record a message for your rep, and Stance will, once a day, transfer those messages to the rep's voicemail system.

Pros:

• If you're shy (as many of us are), you don't risk talking directly to a person on the phone.
• No risk of busy signals, and Stance itself does retrying if the voicemail box is full.
• You don't have to remember phone numbers.

Cons:

• No chance of talking directly to a person, if you do like that. (I have mixed feelings, personally.)
• Your phone calls are explicitly public: not personally identified as you, but they do put a selection of calls on their website.
• The app is essentially advertising the phone-mail services of a little startup. (But seems to be a tasteful way for them to do so.)

Overall, not a world-shaker, but seems like a potentially useful tool, especially for the phone-shy. As Jen points out, calling your reps is one of the more useful things you can do, even if it is just an occasional "keep up the good fight, rah-rah-rah" so they don't feel drowned under all the negative calls...