WH Chief Administrative Officer : "The phone systems are overloading"

By GottaLaff



Yesterday I posted about a conference call with Al Gore that I was lucky enough to have participated in. He made one vital point, and he made it repeatedly:

Be heard. Call your Senators, write letters, visit their offices.

He added, "Demand action." He is so right:

Interns are scrambling to get the talking points right as the phones ring off the hook. Press secretaries' BlackBerries are running out of batteries from downloading hundreds of emails along the lines of, "Will your boss switch his vote?" Constituents asking about taxes aren't able to get through the clogged switchboards.

In what seems to be the final (really!) push on health care reform on Capitol Hill, offices have been deluged with phone calls from across the country. They are pro-reform, anti-reform, blasting reconciliation or begging for an up-or-down vote - engaged voters who are attempting to influence the course of what will be a razor-close vote this weekend. [...]

At one point this week, the calls shut down the Congressional switchboard. [...]

According to The Hill, the office of the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) told Congressional offices the system is "nearing capacity" and "It got critical enough whereby we notified all systems administrators throughout the House that the phone systems are overloading."

Good.

Without our voices, there is no democracy. Without our calls, our representatives can't know where we stand.


Keep it up, America.