Basically, if you find a working number, then use it.

How to call Congress for free
There's no official 800 number, but you can find them if you know where to look.
By Katie Litvin

Is calling Congress racking up long-distance charges on your phone bill?

One interesting quirk about the U.S. Capitol is that there are no official toll-free lines to the Congressional switchboard.

That means you foot the bill most times you call the official number (202-224-3121 for the Senate; 202-224-3121 for the House) with a question or concern for your elected officials.

But toll-free lines offered by different lobbyist groups present a free alternative to calling the official Congressional numbers.

Although some members purchase toll-free lines to their offices, they do this independently of the Congressional phone system.

Minnesota Rep. Tim Walz operates a toll-free number to his local office that is accessible from anywhere in the country.

"This toll-free number will help ensure that my constituents can be in touch with me and will help me better represent them in Washington," Walz wrote in a statement released in 2008.

Other members only own toll-free lines accessible to voters from their district.

For example, Florida Rep. Suzanne Kosmas owns a toll-free line so her constituents can call for free across central Florida.

"We have multiple area codes in our district and some constituents were worried about long distance fees when contacting our offices, so the toll-free line eliminates those concerns," her spokesperson, Marc Goldberg, wrote in an e-mail.

To encourage phone calls to members of Congress, lobbyists sometimes pay for constituents' calls.

One lobbying organization pays for a "click-to-call" service: after you fill out a form on Healthcare-NOW's Web site, your phone rings and connects your call to the office of your representative or senator.

"It's challenging to get people to call Congress," Healthcare-NOW's assistant national coordinator Katie Robbins said. "Anything you can do to make it easier helps, so they don't have to look up the number or find out who their member is."

Other lobbyists pay for toll-free numbers that connect to the Congressional switchboards.

Interest groups pass around these toll-free numbers on Internet chatrooms and on e-mail chains.

The health care advocacy group Families USA owns one of these toll-free lines. The free service (1-800-828-049 plays a 20-second recorded message urging callers to thank their senator or representative and to tell them people can no longer wait for lower health care costs, before the number connects to the Congressional switchboard.

There aren't any regulations over who can forward calls to Congress, a practice that has gone on "as long as anyone can remember," according to Kimball Winn, the Senate's assistant sergeant at arms and the chief information officer.

"We don't know what numbers come from where," he said.

The phone numbers usually cost a couple cents per minute people use them, so lobbying groups frequently cancel them and buy new ones to prevent misuse.

Wynn had one other tip: Since the Congressional switchboard operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you may have more luck getting through at midnight than at noon.

Even though Members won't be in their offices, you can still leave a message on their voice mail.

For toll-free numbers paid for by Members of Congress, click here .

The following numbers are paid for by advocacy groups. They may stop working at any time.

866-338-1015

877-851-6437

877-210-5351

Katie Litvin writes for Congressional Quarterly.

http://www.congress.org/news/2009/10/09 ... s_for_free