May 28, 1998

One of the largest jobs for a congressional office staff is responding to contact from constituents. Constituents who wrote, called, or e-mailed to communicate their positions on various issues or request information most often received a reply from Congressman Fawell's staff in the form of a written letter. These letters were versions of Congressman Fawell's position papers (found in Record Group 3: Constituent Service Files: Position Paper Files, 1985-1998) with a comment added to reflect the constituent's position in comparison to his own. In many cases, if the constituent contacted the Congressman's office regarding more than one issue, the reply letter combined the appropriate position papers. Topics varied from specific bills and requests for certain materials to positions on broad topics, such as abortion and the environment. The Washington, D.C. office staff retained correspondence with 13th district constituents annually during May only. For the 1986-1996 and 1998 Constituent Correspondence Files, only reply letters sent by the staff are included (with the names and addresses of the constituents marked out with a black permanent marker, although the information is still legible, if not reproducible). A few folders, presumably overlooked by the staff, still contain original constituent correspondence and unaltered reply letters. If the reply letter ran in excess of one page, only the first page was retained. In 1997, the staff maintained unaltered constituent correspondence, but only one copy of an unaltered reply letter sent to several constituents who had contacted the office regarding the same issue.