This paper addresses several questions about policy-oriented collective action in the U.S. How much is there? Is there as little as some theories predict? What do people do to influence the U.S. Congress? Who tries to do so? And what is the balance between action supporting policy change and action opposing it? To answer these questions, the paper confronts disagreements about the definition of collective action and advances methods for studying it. There is arguably very little collective action, in line with theoretical expectations; most consists of written and

oral communications, very little of protest; much collective action is the work of people whose activities cost them little or nothing, and some are actually paid for it; there is considerably more collective action favoring policy change than opposing it.