======= Call Congress

A simple flask server that connects calls between citizens and their congress person using the Twilio API.

The server handles two cases:

• A phone call made to the campaign number
• A web-initiated call to connect a user's phone number to congress
  • can specify congress person(s) in the api call
  • can have the user punch in their zip code and look up their congressional members

Incoming phone calls

Each new campaign's Twilio phone number needs to be configured to point to:

/incoming_call?campaignId=abc-1234

The user will be prompted to punch in their zip code, the server will locate their members of congress using the Sunlight Labs locate data, and dial them.

Web-initiated connection calls

These calls are made from a web form where the user enters their phone number to be connected to Congress (will be prompted for zip code):

/create?campaignId=abc-123&userPhone=1234567890

or a specific member of congress:

/create?campaignId=abc-123&userPhone=1234567890&repIds=P000197

or to member(s) based on zip code:

/create?campaignId=abc-123&userPhone=1234567890&zipcode=98102

Required Params:

• userPhone
• campaignId

Optional Params: (either or)

• zipcode
• repIds: identifiers (can be more than one) from the Sunlight API's bioguide_id field

Campaign Configuration

Currently stored in /data/campaigns.yaml, each campaign has the following optional fields. Defaults are given by the default campaign.

• id
• number (Twilio phone number)
• target_house include house members in lookups by location
• target_senate include senators in lookups by location
• target_house_first allows the campaign to target house members before senate members (default: target senate first)
• repIds (optional) list of rep. IDs to target

Messages: Can be urls for recorded message to play or text for the robot to read. Text can be rendered as a mustache template. The following messages are the defaults and will be inherited by new campaigns unless overwritten.

• msg_intro: Hi. Welcome to call congress.
• msg_ask_zip: Please enter your zip code so we can lookup your Congress person.
• msg_invalid_zip: "Sorry, that zip code didn't work. Please try again."
• msg_call_block_intro: "We'll now connect you to {{n_reps}} representatives. Press # for next rep."
• msg_rep_intro: "We're now connecting you to {{name}}"
• msg_between_thanks: You're doing great - here's the next call.
• msg_final_thanks: Thank you!

Account Keys

The app uses environment variables to store account keys. For development you will need to set:

• SUNLIGHTLABS_KEY
• TWILIO_DEV_ACCOUNT_SID
• TWILIO_DEV_AUTH_TOKEN
• TW_NUMBER

and for production:

• SUNLIGHTLABS_KEY
• TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID
• TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN
• APPLICATION_ROOT (url for application server)
• TASKFORCE_KEY (used for querying statistics)

Development mode

To install locally and run in debug mode use:

# create ENV variables
virtualenv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

python app.py
# for testing twilio, need internet-visible urls to do call handling
ngrok -subdomain="1cf55a5a" 5000

When the dev server is running, the demo front-end will be accessible at http://localhost:5000/demo.

Unit tests can also be run, using:

python test_server.py

Production server

To run in production:

# create ENV variables
# open correct port
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
# initialize the database
python models.py
# run server - will charge real $ and connect real calls
foreman start

Updating for changes in congress

Just download the latest data from Sunlight Congress API using:

cd data && make -B
git commit data/districts.csv data/legislators.csv