Politics is also a hierarchy and its worth keeping in mind that local politicians may have much better connections to people in the next tier than you do from outside. Your local state senator may have much better access to your federal senator and that level of access can turn into opportunity for them to influence them. If your state representatives know how important their behaviour with regards to federal issues is to you as a voter, you stand a much better chance of the system working how it's intended.

It's systemic lack of involvement that's causing the most issues in American politics. From the top with "lifetime senators" largely immune from their constituencies, and from the bottom with voter turnouts under twenty percent.