Mail and Office Distribution Policies

Distributions to the Senate and Assembly

1. Material to be distributed must have a contact name, address and phone number. It can be either the individual or the organization distributing the material.

2. It is required by the Secretary of State that there are 34 copies for the Senate and 100 for the Assembly. A distribution for both houses would require 134 copies. The Sergeant at Arms office keeps a copy on file of all mail distributions.

3. Distributions for both houses should be brought to the Senate Sergeant’s Office at B35 South or the Assembly Sergeant’s Office at 411 West.

4. AM deliveries must be received by 8:30 am. They will be delivered in the morning mail with all offices receiving copies by 10:00 am.

5. PM deliveries must be received by 10:30 am. They will be delivered in the afternoon mail with all offices receiving copies by 2:00 pm.

6. No commercial items can be sent through our mail system – No flyers from restaurants, retail business, etc.

7. Senate and Assembly rules prohibit the distribution of material which solicits funds, even for non-profit organizations. Exceptions are events which charge a fee to be in compliance with lobby laws.

8. Anything of value that goes through the mail must be first checked by the Ethics Board and noted in the cover letter (i.e. books, pins, calendars, etc.). All items must be properly packaged and will not be done by either Sergeant’s office.

Materials without sufficient copies or contact information will not be delivered but will be held in the Legislative Mail room for 5 business days until the correct information or number of copies has been received. After this time, material not corrected or retrieved will be destroyed.

Incoming and Outgoing Mail

All incoming and outgoing mail arrives at the Risser Justice Building before being brought to the Capitol Building.

Mailroom personnel deliver incoming mail twice daily at approximately 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Likewise, outgoing mail is picked up twice daily. The Department of Administration picks up outgoing US Mail and interdepartmental mail from the Justice Building at 2:30 p.m.; therefore, any mail that needs to be out by the end of the day must be delivered to the Senate mailroom by 2:15 p.m. If this deadline is missed, stamped mail can be taken to the Post Office on Martin Luther King Boulevard.

There is also a US Post Office drop-off box mounted on the wall of the Rotunda by the Martin Luther King Boulevard entrance to the Capitol. Mail is picked up from this box at 10:30 a.m. and 5:15 p.m., thus will go out same day as well.

Please be sure that your unstamped mail is not sealed and the envelope flaps are up, as it goes through a stamping and sealing machine. On the other hand, stamped mail should be sealed. Packages or large envelopes also need to be sealed prior to being picked up by mailroom personnel. If you have a small mailing and know the count of the pieces, please attach a note containing this information.

Interdepartmental mail envelopes (inter-d's) are used by offices for both mail and the errands our office performs; therefore, it is important that you do not put in your Outgoing Mail receptacle inter-d's that you have called a messenger to pick up and deliver. The mail person may arrive at your office before the messenger and assume such envelopes are mail and take them. Sometimes this error is not discovered until the envelope has left the building and has been picked up by DOA, thus making retrieval difficult.

For normal delivery, the correct mailing address for Senate offices is:

State Senator Xxxx

State Capitol

P.O. Box 7882

Madison, WI 53707-7882

All overnight express mail also arrives at the Risser Justice Center. If you are expecting such a delivery, please have the sender label your package as follows:

Senate Chief Clerk

State Senator Xxxx

Risser Justice Center

17 West Main St., Suite 401

Madison, WI 53703

The "Senate Chief Clerk" label will direct the package to the Clerk's office, allowing staff to hand deliver the package directly to your office.

If you have any questions, please contact Chuck Johnson, Legislative Mailing Services Coordinator, at 6-1006.

Incoming and Outgoing Mail

All incoming and outgoing mail arrives at the Risser Justice Building before being brought to the Capitol Building.