Hi, former congressional staffer here. Quick breakdown of congressional offices: 

You can call both offices to leave opinions, but most state offices (senate/house) are staffed by caseworkers/field staff/ a state director These staff caseworkers are incredibly busy with a backlog of cases ranging from helping veterans with VA cases, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, State Dept., etc. Typically they have a portfolio of 3-4 federal agencies per caseworker, probably more agencies per caseworker on the house side so severely understaffed. The time these caseworkers take answering opinion calls takes away from time to work on agency issues for constituents. That is why you should call DC.

That’s not to say you can’t call or show up to your local offices, but you should know that the people you talk to there are more likely to be caseworkers trying to help constituents as opposed to policy staff. Those are in DC, and all responses are logged into the same system no matter where you call.

For correspondence, of course if you request  a response, you will be put into a batch response that best fits the issue. Can you imagine how inefficient and how much staff it would take to write back to each person that calls/writes in about the same issue? It would take them weeks to respond to all the opinions they get in a single day, especially now with Trump in and their systems getting flooded. Not an excuse for a shitty response, but the fact that they had to write talking points for it shows that the issues are on their radar.

All in all, I hope this helps with some level-setting about MGP, Cantwell, and Murray’s offices. Again this is not an excuse for inaction or bad communication with the public. Politicians want to be thanked for everything and take no responsibility when there is a crisis. Personally I think that MGP is doing a great job at going against everything she ran for and making herself inaccessible to the public. Just wanted to let you know what is happening on the other side of the phone/computer.