Beginning in 1986, Congress passed several pieces of legislation that placed individual limits on Members' mail costs and required public disclosure of each Member's overall franking expenditures. These changes helped reduce overall congressional mail postage costs to $23.8 million during the 113 th Congress (2013-2014), down from a high of $177.4 million during the 100 th Congress (1987-1988). Despite the significant reduction in costs, critics continue to raise concerns about the franking privilege. In particular, mass mailings—franked mailings of 500 or more substantially similar pieces of unsolicited mail sent by individual Members during the same session of Congress —have come under increased scrutiny as critics argue that the vast majority of franked mail is unsolicited and, in effect, publicly funded campaign literature. Between 1997 and 2008, the House publicly reported the volume and cost of individual Member mass mailings. At the direction of the Committee on House Administration, in January 2009 the House began reporting the volume and cost of individual mass communications instead of mass mailings. Mass communications include all unsolicited mailings or communications of substantially identical content distributed to 500 or more persons, regardless of media. In April 2011, the House began separately reporting mass mailing and mass communications volumes and costs. This report provides an analysis of Member mass mailings during the period 1997-2008; mass communications during the period 2009-2011; and both mass mailings and mass communications during the period 2011-2015. First, it examines aggregate Member mass mailing and mass communication data to ascertain how many pieces of mass mail or communication were sent by Representatives annually, the total cost of those communications, and the annual percentage of Members who sent at least one mass mailing or mass communication. Second, quarterly Member mass mailing and mass communication data are evaluated to determine whether there was quarterly variation in Member mass mailing and mass communication volume and whether the variation reflected cyclical trends. Finally, the question of whether mass mailing and mass communication volume was higher in election years than in non-election years is considered. Data on Member mass mailings and mass communications were compiled using the quarterly Statement of Disbursement s of the House , which report the number of pieces of mail sent by each Member of the House in mass mailings (1997-2008, 2011-2015) and mass communications (2009-2015) during the preceding quarter and the total postage cost of the quarter's mass mailings or mass communications. The unit of analysis is the mail/communication statistic for each Member's office. Therefore, any Congress might contain more or fewer than the typical 441 Members, due to vacancies or to Members elected in special elections to fill vacancies. A mass mailing is statutorily defined as "any mailing of newsletters or other pieces of mail with substantially identical content (whether such mail is deposited singly or in bulk, or at the same time or different times), totaling more than 500 pieces" in one session of Congress. An unsolicited mass communication is defined by the Committee on House Administration as "any unsolicited communication of substantially identical content to 500 or more persons in a session of Congress." Examples of mass communications include radio, television, newspaper, and Internet advertisements; automated phone calls; mass facsimiles; and mass emails distributed to a non-subscriber emailing list. All mass mailings sent through the first quarter of 2011 are mass communications. Beginning in the second quarter of 2011, mass communications no longer include mass mailings. Mass mailing data were examined for 67 quarters, from the first quarter of calendar year (CY) 1997 through the fourth quarter of CY2008, and from the second quarter of CY2011 through the fourth quarter of CY2015. Mass communication data were examined for 28 consecutive quarters, from the first quarter of CY2009 through the fourth quarter of CY2015. The universe of data includes 84,626 observations, half corresponding to the number of pieces sent by an individual Member in a given quarter and half corresponding to the cost to an individual Member in a given quarter. House Members sent 1.6 billion pieces of mass mail between 1997 and 2008 and between 2011 and 2014, at a total cost of $322.8 million. As shown in Table 1 , House Members sent a calendar year average of 94.1 million pieces of mass mail, costing an average of $19.0 million. The total number of mass mail pieces sent by the House ranged from a low of 39.8 million pieces in 2013 to a high of 122.6 million in 1997. Recently, Members have been sending less mass mail. Both total pieces and constant dollar costs for mass mailings had remained relatively stable for most of the span of the dataset, but both have fallen by almost 50% since 2011. Between 1997 and 2013, an annual average of 81% of House Members sent at least one mass mailing. In 2014 and 2015, however, only 62% and 66% of Member sent at least one mass mailing, respectively. House Members sent 1.72 billion pieces of mass communication (including mass mailings) between 2009 and 2011, at a total cost of $131.5 million. As shown in Table 2 , House Members sent a calendar year average of 573.1 million pieces of mass communication, costing an average of $43.8 million. In the second quarter of 2011, the House began separately reporting mass mailing and mass communications volumes and costs. For the purpose of reporting, "mass communications" no longer includes mass mailings. For the purpose of the analysis presented here, this is not problematic. A 2011 figure comparable to the 2009 and 2010 "mass communication" figures can be obtained by summing total 2011 mass mailings and 2011 mass communications. The 2011 data in Table 2 reflect this summation. Between 2009 and 2011, an annual average of 92% of House Members sent at least one mass communication. Among Members who sent at least one mass communication, the average calendar year number of pieces of communication sent by a Member was 1,407,364 at a cost of $107,431. In 2011, there was a large increase in the total number of pieces of mass communications, but a decrease in total cost. This is probably attributable to a large increase in the use of electronic communication that has no marginal cost, as well as a decrease in overall amount of mass mailing. House Members sent 1.11 billion pieces of mass communication in 2012, at a total cost of $7.4 million, 801 million pieces of mass communication in 2013, at a total cost of $5.7 million, 623 million pieces of mass communication in 2014, at a total cost of $5.1 million, and 568 million pieces of mass communication in 2015, at a total cost of $5.7 million. These data are not directly comparable to previous years, as mass communications data for 2012-2015 no longer include the volume or cost of mass mailings. If, however, the total volume and cost of 2012-2015 mass mailings are added, comparable figures for 2012 and previous years of mass communications can be realized. These figures—1.17 billion pieces at a cost of $30.3 million in CY2012, 840 million pieces at a cost of $20.9 million in CY2013, 664 million pieces at a cost of $20.9 million in CY2014, and 611 million pieces at a cost of $22.3 million in CY2015—indicate similar use of mass communications in 2012-2015 as in 2011, but show a large reduction in total costs. As shown in Table 1 and Table 2 , the average number of pieces of mass communication sent annually between 2009 and 2011 was about 500% greater than the average number of annual pieces of mass mail sent between 1997 and 2008. This is an expected result; the definition of mass communication used during that period is inclusive of all mass mailings as well as numerous other forms of communication. It is important to note, however, that this should not be interpreted as an increase in overall communication between Members and constituents. While it is possible that total mass communications increased between 2008 and 2011, the lack of data on mass communications in 2008 makes it impossible to draw a valid comparison. If we were to assume that mass mailings between 2009 and 2011 remained roughly constant with 2007 and 2008, it would imply that non-mail mass communications accounted for approximately 83% of all mass communications in 2009 and 2010. The assumption, however, cannot be verified. However, the House began reporting separate mass mailing and mass communication figures in the second quarter of 2011. During the final three quarters of 2011, total pieces of mass mailings (77,609,370) were similar to the last comparable set of three quarters from the first session of a Congress (83,286,364 pieces in 2007). However, they accounted for just 8% of total communications, while mass communications aside from mass mailing accounted for 92%. In 2012, mass communications accounted for 94.7% of total mass constituent contact, and mass mailings accounted for 5.3% of total mass contact. Mass communications, however, were only 24.7% of total mass constituent contact costs. This reflects a significant difference in the per piece cost of mass mailings and mass communications. In 2012, the cost per piece of mass mailing in the House was 38 cents. The cost per piece of mass communication was less than 1 cent. Similarly, in 2013, mass communications accounted for 95.3% of total mass constituent contact, and mass mailings accounted for 4.7% of total mass contact. Mass communications, however, were only 27.4% of total mass constituent contact costs. Costs per piece were 38 cents per piece of mass mailing and less than a cent per piece for mass communications. In 2014, mass communications accounted for 93.9% of total mass constituent contact, and mass mailings accounted for 6.1% of total mass contact. Mass communications, however, were only 24.6% of total mass constituent contact costs.