I built a thing: text your US postal address to (520) 200-2223 and get a text back with your state & federal legislative rep phone numbers.
— John Emerson (@backspace) November 20, 2016
I built an SMS bot! Here’s the story: I’ve been looking at bots for advocacy and have been keeping a short list of inspiring SMS projects including TXTMob, Crises Text Line, mRelief, Planned Parenthood’s Teen Q&A line, and others. I’ve poked around the Twilio API. And then came this message on the Progressive Exchange email list:
Subject: ISO "find your elected officials" by text
I have to think this exists -- is there a simple "text KEYWORD to THIS NUMBER" that will return the names and phone numbers of your elected officials? Congress and state?
Jesse
Turns out it does not exist — so I wired it up and announced it on the list. The response has been super positive.