SALT LAKE CITY — TJ Young is very willing to reach out and contact elected officials.
"I am pretty engaged in several issues locally," Young said Thursday. "Human rights, preserving our constitutional rights especially for vulnerable communities."
On Threads, Young posted a funny video of the experience of trying to reach the offices of Utah senators John Curtis and Mike Lee, stuck listening to the endless loop of hold music. To help reach Utah's congressional delegation, Young has used the app "5 Calls."
"I like 5 Calls because it’s a fast and easy way to stay organized and stay in touch with federal issues so I can easily have my voice heard," she said, adding she has recommended it to others to try.
The app, launched in 2017, helps find out who someone's elected congressional representatives and senators are and then offers to call them. You plug in your address and it tells you who represents you. There's suggested scripts with talking points for various issues Congress is debating so constituents can succinctly leave their input. 5 Calls has seen a surge in popularity lately.
"We were at perhaps four million calls to Congress right when this year started, and so we've just crossed 10 million maybe a month ago," said Nick O'Neill, the technical director and one of the co-founders of 5 Calls.
The app is now expanding to cover the Utah State Legislature, in addition to Congress. O'Neill said it's driven by 5 Calls' popularity here.
"Utah has always been, on the congressional level, a state that gets a large number of calls per capita," O'Neill told FOX 13 News on Thursday. "It's usually in the top three."
The political consulting firm Elevate Strategies is partnering with 5 Calls to expand it to cover the Utah legislature, providing information on what are hot button issues on Utah's Capitol Hill.
"Local issues really do matter and people talking to their representatives, it makes a really big difference," said Jackie Morgan, a senior partner at Elevate Strategies. "We’ve had so many people, since this tool has launched, have reached out to representatives and had actual conversations."
In an era of angry social media posts, it's a high-tech way to do old-fashioned constituent engagement. The app helps people find out who represents them in the Utah State Capitol and, with the push of a button, makes a phone call. There are a number of advocacy groups that have rallied people to "call the halls" whenever there's a hotly-debated issue in the legislature. The conservative Utah Eagle Forum is famous for its "phone tree" that lights up the lines of lawmakers.
But perhaps one of the most daunting tasks of civic engagement is still there — you have to speak to someone.
"You actually have to talk to them," Morgan said. "We have seen time after time that phone calls are the most effective way to reach your representatives. Sending letters, sending emails is one thing and a very productive thing to do and definitely important, but making phone calls is the most important thing you can do."
What's surprising to many is that on a local level, their elected lawmakers do often answer and engage in conversation.
5 Calls is nonpartisan, but some of the subjects it tackles have a progressive lean to them, O'Neill said. It was created out of a desire to get people engaged in politics in an easier way.
"Even if you call your legislators and you don't get what you're asking for, you have a concrete idea of a who your legislator is, what they're voting for or against, and how that matches your expectations for them, right?" O'Neill told FOX 13 News. "It gives you a better sense of guidance for what to do next time they're up for an election."
Morgan said she hopes the app gives Utahns a new way to get involved in local politics.
"It’s really easy to doomscroll and to get caught up in all of the things that are going on, but this is a tool that puts power back in people’s hands," she told FOX 13 News.
