why would the white house mail room have anything to do with delivering mail to congress? Or is the mail room in the house of representatives named after some dude named "White"?
I never would have thought that in the States your would have to pay to write to Congress. Anyone know if that's the case in most countries (in Canada it's free http://www.parl.gc.ca/SenatorsMembers.aspx?Language=e)?
In the wikipedia article Canada and New Zealand are listed as having free mail to an official. Although it doesn't seem to be a comprehensive list, I don't think it's very common.
That's not really the way that the Congressional mail system works.
Also, it's much more impressive to have a barrage of letters to each congressman, rather than a bulk folder that contains all the letters to that congressman.
No, I meant a barrage. Mix all the letters to each congressmen together in the box, and have the mailroom sort it out - so it's still individual letters.
But maybe they don't have a centralized mail room? I didn't actually check.
That defeats the point. You want to get the attention of the people working at the desk of the congressman, not the people working in Cannon/Longworth/Rayburn/etc.
The people working in the congressman's office are the ones who actually have the working relationships with the elected officials (to the point where they can sometimes pressure them if they think that constituents are feeling a certain way, based on calls/letters).
The white house mail room will anyway do the final sorting to individual congressman, and this way you don't have to pay postage on each letter.
But still individual envelopes though (inside the box).