The Nexus of 2024

Breaking: Congress limits constituents’ emails. Facebook to the rescue?

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by

jon
in

Jordy Yager reports in The HIll:

The House is limiting e-mails from the public to prevent its websites from crashing due to the enormous amount of mail being submitted on the financial bailout bill.

As a result, some constituents may get a ‘try back at a later time’ response if they use the House website to e-mail their lawmakers about the bill defeated in the House on Monday in a 205-228 vote.

A question I hope people are asking: why did they underinvest so badly in machine capacity?  And while we’re on the subject, am I the only person who notices that voice mail boxes get filled up by 8 p.m. in the evening?

It’s almost like they don’t want to hear from us or something …

Fortunately, a lot of politicians have Facebook pages.  For example, here’s a thread I set up on Nancy Pelosi’s discussion board a couple of days ago.  Facebook is pretty scalable; I bet they could easily handle a few thousand messages per politician per day.  Maybe more.

List-in-progress of politicians’ Facebook pages here.  If you know other links (on Facebook or MySpace), please add them!

Comments

One response to “Breaking: Congress limits constituents’ emails. Facebook to the rescue?”

  1. jon Avatar
    jon

    Deb Price’s Politicians’ phones ringing off hook on bailout quotes Raymond Miller of Mackinac Island, who spent a couple of days trying to get through to the White House or Congress before an aide to Deborah Stabenow finally picked up: “I would think that the White House and the Congress would like to hear from people about their concerns.”

    I’d like to think that too, but I’m not particularly convinced …

    Price adds:

    Miller called the White House, was put on hold, and after 30 minutes was disconnected. He dialed multiple numbers trying to reach U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee….

    At times, the Capitol Hill switchboard is so clogged that callers get a recording, and lawmakers’ answering machines sometimes pick up during regular business hours because all telephones in their offices are in use….

    Jameson Cunningham, press secretary to U.S. Rep. Thad McCotter, R-Livonia, said their office has received up to 1,000 phone calls a day.

    Reply

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