CRS: "Dear Colleague" Letters: Current Practices, November 25, 2008
Wikileaks release: February 2, 2009
Publisher: United States Congressional Research Service
Title: "Dear Colleague" Letters: Current Practices
CRS report number: RL34636
Author(s): Jacob R. Straus, Government and Finance Division
Date: November 25, 2008
- "Dear Colleague" letters are correspondence signed by Members of Congress and distributed in bulk to their colleagues. Such correspondence is often used by one or more Members to persuade others to cosponsor, support, or oppose a bill. "Dear Colleague" letters also inform Members about new or modified congressional operations or about events connected to congressional business. A Member or group of Members might send a "Dear Colleague" letter to all of their colleagues in a chamber, to Members of the other chamber, or to a subset of Members, such as all Democrats or Republicans. The use of the phrase "Dear Colleague" to refer to a widely distributed letter among Members dates at least to the start of the 20th century, and refers to the generic salutation of these letters. New technologies and expanded use of the Internet have increased the speed and facilitated the process of distributing "Dear Colleague" letters.