Letters to Lawmakers Don’t All Bear Stamp of Approval : Congress: Constituents send mountains of mail. The messages can be benign or hateful, wacky or terrifying.

Three times a day the squeaky-wheeled metal mail carts trundle along the corridors of the House and Senate office buildings, loaded with letters from that strange Constituent Land outside the Beltway, missives bearing messages benign or hateful, wacky or terrifying.

Each year, congressmen and senators receive nearly 50 million pieces of mail delivered to their Capitol Hill offices--each sliced open by some overworked junior staffer to be read, analyzed or thrown away.

Many are funny or evocative--containing pithy zingers, one-liners and insults aimed at the politician or his positions. A few even offer legitimate suggestions on how to better run the federal government.

And then there are the long and rambling ones, hate mail filled with racial epithets or danger signals.

Take the one that landed in Rep. Henry A. Waxman’s office last year.

There was something about the feel of the thing, perhaps the scribbled handwriting, that separated it from the hundreds of other letters received each day by the Democrat who represents an area of the Westside and a part of the southern San Fernando Valley.

But it was only when staffers read the letter that the red flags were hoisted: It included a death threat.

Waxman aides forwarded the missive to the House sergeant-at-arms, who investigates suspicious mail. “They told us not to worry, that they had checked the guy out and he wasn’t really that dangerous,” recalled Waxman administrative assistant Phil Schiliro. “They said he had just had one criminal charge. So we asked what that was.”

The reply: assault with a deadly weapon.

“Somehow,” Schiliro said, “we didn’t rest any easier.”

While Washington lawmakers receive many threats each year, most potshots come in a different form.

“The classic threat from unwell people,” observed one staffer, “is not ‘I’m going to kill you,’ but ‘I’m going to keep writing you.’ ”

And they do, sometimes producing off-the-wall letters that leave congressional staffers scratching their heads: like the missives sent from a Minnesota man to a San Fernando Valley congressman, which declared that “Trees everywhere need trimming and removing” and “It’s about time you did something to earn your salary. An orgasm of crime is sweeping America.”

Then there are the weird letters that might as well carry a postmark from Mars, which force congressional aides to compose the ultimate politically correct reply--one that appears to respond while actually saying nothing at all: “Thank you very much for writing us about the Martians pumping air into your house. The congressman was most interested . . . “

Said one staffer: “How do you answer mail from the lunatic fringe? It’s an art form to fashion rational responses to people who make absolutely no sense whatsoever.”

One writer sends his thoughts scribbled on public restroom paper towels that are each painstakingly wrapped in old aluminum foil. Another claims the CIA is monitoring him through fillings in his teeth.

There’s the constituent who insists the nation’s ZIP code system is outdated and should be replaced with one based on a person’s birthday on the ancient Julian calendar. Or the woman who writes Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon as often as three times daily--missives stamped with the image of an upside-down American flag that rail about the excesses of big government, that explain why Congress and the United Nations should be abolished.

Examining one letter, McKeon, a Republican who represents the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, shakes his head: “Imagine having nothing else to do but write letters to your congressman.”

Constituent letters represent political lobbying at its purest: Unlike the huge, well-oiled tobacco and milk interests, they show the Common Man making his point, trying to influence Big Government to his way of thinking.

Such letters play a role in politics. Some are read on the House or Senate floor as examples of what the public really is thinking. Others read them aloud on their weekly cable television shows.

“It’s what lobbying is all about,” added McKeon. “Over the years, the concept of lobbying has taken on negative connotations. But for me, real lobbying is what these people do--write to get your point across.”

Many lawmakers believe one thoughtful personal letter on an overlooked issue has more influence than a flood of correspondence on some raging national controversy.

Such letter blitzes are often part of some special interest campaign. On Capitol Hill, they are known as Astro-Turf campaigns--artificial, compared to real grass-roots efforts.

Vera Katz of Santa Monica, a Russian immigrant, penned a letter so personal it moved Waxman’s staff to lobby a foreign government on her behalf.

It involved Gilshteyn Fridrikh--a 54-year-old Muscovite and close friend of Katz who she said was imprisoned in Russia for being a Jew who wanted to emigrate to Israel. Katz’s letter described Fridrikh’s broken arms and legs, injuries inflicted by his captors, and pleaded with Waxman to investigate.

Despite several efforts by Waxman’s staff to contact Boris Yeltsin and the Russian government, there has been no reply.

Still, Katz is thankful.

“I wrote from the bottom of my heart,” said Katz, 50, whose husband teaches seismology at USC. “I trust Mr. Waxman. And when you trust somebody, it is easy to write them.

“My friend is dying. He is deaf, and he is starving. Henry Waxman performed like he was a friend of poor Gilshteyn. I am disappointed with my government but very proud of my American congressman.”

Colleen Buckley of Palmdale wrote her congressman, pleading for his help in saving her home, which was up for foreclosure. Her humor despite dire circumstances moved McKeon to respond, especially the line that Buckley was divorcing a Democrat.

Buckley sent similar letters to many public officials, including President Clinton, whether she had voted for them or not. She got what she called a worthless form letter from the office of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

McKeon called her at home.

Although McKeon has been unable to save her home from foreclosure Buckley thanked him for trying. “Just the fact that he called, has written letters and made contacts on my behalf, that has meant so much,” she said.

“I just wanted to tell somebody in government what the heck was happening. Nobody listened except Buck. Now I’m going to work on the committee to reelect Buck McKeon. Pay-backs aren’t always hell.”

Following an unpopular vote, Sen. William Cohen (R-Maine) received a letter from another Cohen asking him to “Please change your last name because you are a considerable embarrassment to Cohens such as me.” Better perhaps than this letter Cohen received during the Watergate affair, perhaps from a Nixon fan: “May a thousand camels relieve themselves in your drink.”

There’s a definite cause and effect to congressional mail. When Waxman becomes the subject of a television news report on his battles with lobbyists, his mail volume skyrockets--the letters both laudatory and insulting.

He has received letters from children thanking him for his anti-smoking efforts--such as the Georgia fifth-grader who praised him because “you . . . really kick butt where the tobacco companies are concerned.”

Others have taken Waxman to task on the same issue.

“We got one letter from a Kentucky voter saying the congressman should leave the tobacco companies alone and put his skills to work on a real issue: people who forget to leave up the toilet seat in public restrooms,” said legislative assistant Russell Shaw.

Waxman is amazed at the hatred in some letters. “I didn’t realize there was so much anti-Semitism in this country,” he said.

“You have to put it in perspective. I don’t think they’re a sizable force in America. Anyway, the threats don’t scare me personally or politically. You accept the fact that when you’re Jewish and a highly visible public figure, people are going to let you know their views on Jews.”

Some politicians have countered such vitriol with a sense of style. Congressman Sam Rayburn, the story goes, returned hate mail with an attached note: “Some crackpot sent me this letter with your name on it. I thought you should know.”

Another answered constituent suggestions by returning the letters marked with one of his two rubber stamps: “Hell, yes!” or “Hell, no!”

One San Fernando Valley lawmaker answered an insulting letter by thanking the writer. Then he handwrote at the end of the typed form letter: “Now get a life.”

Waxman won’t give mail hecklers even the benefit of a return letter, “especially if they’re out of my district,” he quipped.

Senate historian Richard Baker said mail increased with the advent of C-SPAN, which allows constituents to watch their lawmakers at work on live television.

“We’ve got more thought-out letters from retirees who are irritated or have an idea” after seeing some hearing on C-Span, he said. “But the hate mail and the threats, they haven’t been as affected. They’ve been around as long as there have been politicians.”

Rep. Maxine Waters, one of 10black women in Congress, said she likes nothing better than to personally telephone hate-mail writers.

“I call and say: ‘Hi! This is Maxine Waters. How ya doin? I got your letter.’ And I just listen to the silence. I disarm them.”

Waters, a Los Angeles Democrat, once made time to write back to most correspondents who used racial insults. “Politicians are so mealy mouthed, they’re afraid to take such people to task. I let them know they couldn’t talk to Maxine Waters like that.

“Now I don’t have the time. You can’t change people.”

While racially charged letters represent 15% of her daily mail, some include threats that are a federal crime--such as the one that said Waters would soon be “riddled with bullets.”

House and Senate postal officials take death threats seriously. In a House office building basement, incoming mail is X-rayed and subjected to precautions that officials refuse to discuss.

“We call the Capitol police several times a month,” said Paul Lozito, assistant director of House mail operations. “While we haven’t received any letter bombs that we know of, we’ve confiscated bullets and fireworks.”

But Waters scoffs at the suggestion of sending such letters to the House sergeant-at-arms, as security officials instruct lawmakers to do.

Hate mail, Waters said, lets her know she’s doing her job. “The only thing it does is strengthen my resolve,” she said.

Now she keeps a file to show the perverse attention she has generated as one of Washington’s most outspoken politicians.

“You get letters from people who hate you,” she said. “Sometimes, I feel that one day I’m going to be walking in a crowd and somebody is going to come up and stab me. I’m not afraid. But I know it’s possible.”