The Congress you have tried to reach...

Posted at 1:39 PM on July 26, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

In the wake of last night's call by President Obama for people to contact their congresspeople to urge a solution to the country's debt crisis, a lot of people apparently are. The U.S. House of Representatives Web site has crashed. Its front page is available, but the individual member sites are not.

Getting through by telephone isn't much easier. An e-mail from the House call center said the phone lines to the Capitol are jammed:

"Due to the high volume of external calls, House telephone circuits serving 202-225-XXXX phone numbers are near capacity resulting in outside callers occasionally getting busy signals," the email said.

In an age of voicemail, when's the last time you heard a busy signal?

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Comments (6)

I wonder - is it legal to hire telemarketers to call Congressional representatives? Seems worth the money to me - killing 2 birds with one stone.

Posted by Tyler | July 26, 2011 2:43 PM

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I had no trouble getting real people at Ellison, Franken, and Klobuchar's offices by telephone. Boehner: voicemail. The white house comment line: busy signal every time I've tried, and I've tried about 20 times.

Posted by betty tisel | July 26, 2011 3:08 PM

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At about 3:45 PM I was able to reach Rep. Erik Paulsen's office by phone. Rang a couple of dozen times at the "congressional swichboard" (if they really do have switchboards anymore). Paulsen's office picked up after about 6 rings.

Posted by tboom | July 26, 2011 4:02 PM

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Tyler, it's not illegal. It's also not uncommon for organization to run phone banks where you call one central number and then the organization pays someone to route you to your representative.

What I actually wanted to comment on was how much the US House website header visually resembles Obama's campaign design tendencies.

Posted by Kevin Watterson | July 26, 2011 4:36 PM

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Oh, this is so on purpose! Republicans control the House, so they've "crashed" their website. They know that they're going to hear they're WRONG - they've seen the polls.

Posted by Jamie | July 26, 2011 5:19 PM

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Everyone in our house has sent an email message to Erik Paulsen. It took some patients but we all got through. I called his office this afternoon and got through (it took a few tries). I learned today that Erik Paulsen is associated with ALEC link here.
http://minnesotaindependent.com/85071/rep-paulsen-tied-to-controversial-corporate-group-alec
This makes me mad, I think everyone should read this article. I think it legit, if it isn't I apologize for leading anyone astray. I don't know if this is anything but I was able to get access to all the democratic legislators with no problem, I received the site unavailable notice when trying the republicans.
Thanks for the space.
t

Posted by Tim Neal | July 26, 2011 9:45 PM

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