There are some who call me Mr. Beat. 

About three months ago, I called every U.S.  Senator in the country, and many of you watched.

In fact, I asked many of you to share  with me questions you’d like me to ask  

YOUR U.S. Senator on your  behalf. And yes, I did it live.  

We'll do it live. :beep: it! We'll do  it live! I livestreamed it on YouTube,  

Twitch, and even Metaface, and this, you  could say, uh, added to the drama a bit.

Now, when I say I called every U.S. Senator,  I actually just called someone who is on their  

staff. Sadly, I didn’t actually get to talk to  any U.S. Senator directly. While I was secretly  

thinking it’d be really cool if an actual Senator  picked up the phone, I wasn’t expecting it.

It’s no surprise that Senators depend heavily on  their staffers. Each Senator has dozens of staff  

members, many of them interns, who help Senators  analyze bills and policies, manage their offices,  

meet with the press, research, archive stuff, and,  most importantly, communicate with constituents.

Ya know, constituents like you and me.

In my opinion, these staffers are underpaid  heroes. There are nearly 6,000 Senate staffers,  

and they all work their butts off. I later  found out that most of the people I ended  

up talking to on the phone were in fact interns.  So anyway, my goal was to call all their offices  

within 6 hours. 100 Senators in 6 hours. Oh,  and the office of the president of the Senate,  

the Vice President, Kamala Harris.  So 101 calls in 6 hours. No problem.

Yeah it took like, wayy longer than that.

In fact, it took me so long that I had to break  it into two parts. The whole thing took around 11  

hours. To be fair, much of it was responding to  your deep concerns about our federal government.  

You wanted your voice heard. You wanted  your Senators to hear all about the bills,  

laws, policies, and issues that were  important to you. And while I brought  

up all kinds of important stuff to the Senate  staffers, my default issue was election reform,  

which is really important to me. In  particular, I brought up voting rights  

bills that I thought would help protect  our representative form of democracy.

Well, many Senate offices  didn’t even answer the phone.

Of the 101 offices I called, 53 didn’t  pick up, so I left 53 voicemails. In  

every single voicemail I left, I  briefly mentioned the bill, issue,  

or policy I wanted the Senator to know about,  as well as my contact information. Oh yeah,  

I also tried to remember to thank them for their  service. Sucking up never hurts, after all.

48 staffers DID answer. At first, I told staffers  

that they’re call was being recorded and they  didn’t like that too much. So I stopped telling  

them after that. By the way, the District  of Columbia has a “one-party consent” law,  

which means it’s not a crime to record a phone  call as long as one party knows. Oh I knew about  

it alright. The vast majority of staffers I  spoke to were both very nice and knowledgeable.  

Ok, some of them weren’t so nice but ya  know. Some of them even knew who I was  

and knew that I was livestreaming so that  was especially crazy. For some of them,  

it really felt like they weren’t going to  pass along my information. Many especially  

seemed to disengage from me once they realized  I wasn’t from the state the Senator represented.

So it’s now been three months. How many responses  did I get back from the actual Senators?  

Well, sadly, not many at all.

I did get added to some mailing lists. I now  get newsletters from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul  

all…the…time. A shout out to his communications  team. They are busy. I also get emails  

occasionally from Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty  and Minnesota Senator Tina Smith. I also somehow  

got on Representative Lauren Boebert’s mailing  list, and I’m pretty sure the Hagerty staffer  

was responsible for this. And hey speaking of  Senator Smith, she also emailed me a personal  

letter supporting my support for election reform,  specifically referencing her disagreement with the  

Supreme Court in the case Shelby County v. Holder  and mentioning her cosponsorship of the John  

Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. That said, it  mostly felt like copypasta, like she or one of her  

staffers literally copied and pasted just about  all of it from something else previously written.

I got three other letters back that  also had a copypasta feel to them.

The offices of Ohio Senator Sherrod  Brown, New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich,  

and New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen all  emailed me copypasta letters. Senator Shaheen  

also supported my support for election reform,  specifically referencing her disagreement with  

the Supreme Court in the case Shelby County v.  Holder and mentioning her cosponsorship of the  

John Lewis Voting RIghts Advancement Act. Wait,  in fact her email was A LOT like Senator Smith’s.  

Hmmm. Senator Heinrich’s email supported my  support for Puerto Rico becoming a state,  

bringing up his introduction of the Puerto Rico  Statehood Admission Act of 2021. Senator Brown’s  

email was uh…interesting. I had called him about  ranked choice voting being a great alternative to  

plurality voting, and his email was mostly just  an explainer about what ranked choice voting is.

Thanks Senator Brown, but I actually  already made a video explaining it!

Anyway, he didn’t specifically support  ranked choice voting in the letter,  

but instead said he vaguely supported  it being easier to vote. That said,  

at least he ended the letter with “should  legislation on rank choice voting come to  

the Senate floor for consideration, I will  be sure to keep your thoughts in mind.”

Thanks dude! (thumbs up) The next response  I got was pretty impressive because it  

felt less like copypasta and more  like an actual, personal letter.

It was from Oregon Senator Jeffrey  Merkley, and this was his response  

to my voicemail regarding response to  climate change. He began the letter with… 

Greetings Mr. Beat, Thank you for your call, your interest in my work  

to fight climate chaos, and for encouraging your  fellow citizens to engage with their government. 

and ended it with… Thank you again for contacting me,  

and for helping educate your audience  on YouTube about civics and about  

government engagement! All my best, 

Jeffrey A. Merkley United States Senator

Well that was nice, man. Thanks Senator! But  uh, you’re about to be outdone. There was only  

one U.S. Senator who sent a response like this. 

(Cory Booker clip) That was New Jersey Senator Cory Booker,  

and that was…freaking amazing. This particularly  impressed me since I know just how busy  

Senators are. So the fact that he took  out the time to film that was neat.

And Senator Booker’s enthusiasm must be  contagious because his staffer who I spoke  

with on the phone was also enthusiastic and  receptive to my calls for election reform.

As cool as that was, in the three months  since I made the 101 calls to Senate offices,  

I only got six responses back. Total. Just six.

One of those who didn’t get back to me was New  Mexico Senator Ben Ray Lujan, and I totally  

understand why he didn’t. The man had a stroke  while I was literally doing the livestreams,  

and I wish him the very best as he still is slowly  recovering. But for the rest of you Senators,  

I am disappointed in you. Let me be frank.  

This experience has been a total letdown and has  made me question our representative democracy.

Look, I get why Senators can’t  make much time for constituents.  

They have so many. Take California. There are  almost 40 million people that live in California!  

And I imagine the two California Senators get A  LOT of calls and emails each day to their offices. 

Still, I KNOW they make time for  their campaign donors, and I KNOW  

they make time for lobbyists who bribe  them. So…why can’t they make time for us?

To the six U.S. Senators who responded, thank you.  To the rest of you, you have some work to do. Oh  

and watch out, because I’m calling every member  of the House of Representatives, next. Stay tuned. 

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Thanks to all the Congressional staffers who  reached out to me after the livestreams. It  

was truly valuable to hear your perspective. It  was also…uh…a little depressing, to be honest.  

Keep fighting the good fight. I’ll keep you  posted when I call each member of the House  

of Representatives. No, it won’t all be in  one day. Thanks for watching, constituents!