Paul Hodes D-NH is definitely out of touch, and he has barely begun
By Just Me Posted in Archived — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I have generally complained about the fact that I have written my new congressman Paul Hodes several times in opposition to various bills and the fact that he hasn't bothered to responde to me.
I confess I wasn't a huge fan of my former congressman Charlie Bass, but he was always good about responding to any letters I sent him, and when he voted opposite of my desire he always argued why he was voting the way he was. If his letters were form letters, he hid it well (or his staffers did).
Well I finally got a response from Hodes, and it was over the the Employer Free Choice Act (ie the give more power to the unions and deny people their right to a secret ballot bill).
He apparantly didn't bother to read my letter, because it was pretty clear that I was opposed to the bill and why, but here is his response:
Dear XXXXX,
Thank you for contacting me to express your support for H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act. I appreciate hearing from you. I am pleased to be a co-sponsor of this important piece of legislation.
The Employee Free Choice Act will make it easier for American workers to once again negotiate for both the higher wages and benefits necessary to care for their families. The bill helps workers form a union and negotiate fair contracts with their employers. Union employees earn on average 30 percent more than nonunion workers. Making the process to form a union easier is a necessary step to providing the best benefits to American workers.
On March 1, 2007 I voted in favor of H.R. 800 to help the American worker fight for fair wages and better benefits. H.R. 800 passed with 241 votes and has moved on to the Senate for consideration. As a cosponsor of this bill, I look forward to its final passage in the Senate and seeing the Employee Free Choice Act signed into law by the President.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with my office. I appreciate you taking the time to express your views I will continue to work with you and for New Hampshire's working families throughout my term in Washington. If you have any other concerns or interests please contact my office and check my website http://hodes.house.gov.
Sincerely,
Paul Hodes
Member of Congress
Please note that he somehow assumed that I supported the bill, and wants to work with me and my concerns LOL.
Honestly I would almost rather him not responde to my letters than respond with a form letter that assumed support for the bill.
Can't say my new congressman is getting high marks from me.
But I am happy to say that there are exceptions -- my suspicion is that they were either well-designed form letters that seemed personal, or well-written notes by pretty sharp staffers. But I've received, without fail, personal-seeming (and spot-on in terms of the issues I was raising) responses from my senator's office -- Senator John Cornyn.
And whether or not they were just cleverly drafted form letters, what is beyond debate is that somebody at some level read them, and the Senator or his 'machine' had well-defined positions, in detail, to respond with.
It's war -- so when can we start shooting back at the enemy Democrats?
In most of the offices the staff wrote the responses.
My member I worked for had us write them, but insisted on reviewing everything, and usually had edits.
I remember once the staff was in a panic because she was incommunicado and an essential press release had to go out and she hadn't approved it yet. Everyone was sweating bullets. The other member's staffers just had to open the drawer with the signature stamp.
Of course this was local not national, but I imagine it's similar.
good responses back from him, when he held the seat.
I have also gotten responses from Sununu and Gregg-although their letters always felt more "form" letterish, but they at least didn't assume I supported whatever bill I was writing about.
But Charlie Bass' responses were often explainations for why he wasn't voting the way I wanted on a bill. Now they may have been good responses by staffers, but at least his office took the time to read my letter, make note of my position and write a resonse if he still was voting the other way.
I do think one thing that is true of our state is that it is very small-barely 1 million residents, so a congress member or senator from NH probably doesn't get quite the volume of mail that a senator from California, Texas, or some other large state receives.
It's the same thing over here in District 1. No response on any issue at all.
I was one of Jeb Bradley's biggest critics, but at least he responded to concerns and questions. He conducted 120+ townhall meetings and handed out his cell phone number to constituents. He even gave his number to Carol Shea-Porter.
about the Taliban student at Yale. I called his office here in Phoenix and the staffer I talked to was really good. He told me:
1. Address the letter to Shadegg but email to him or it would get lost.
2. He gave me his private email address.
3. He told me that all Shadegg could do was to lodge a complaint with the State Dept, which he would do and the staffer promised to follow up with me when he did.
4. He followed up just as promised.
5. He told me the State Department would do exactly nothing.
6. He was right.
They treated me very well, did what they said they would do and gave me a realistic expectation up front.
____
Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
I can tell you that unlike Paul Hodes apparent attitude, he and his staff went to great length to answer every single individual letter that came in and to respond to form letters with a commonly articulated form letter that had been carefully considered up the chain.
That being said, I can't say we always got the responses out quickly. I asked our intern coordinator about it at the time, and he told me that becuase of the space limitations available to members (ie. the shear room for desk in the little 3 room office in Rayburn HOB) they could only take on so many staff or interns to sort through things.
Apparently, during his time in the office (a few years I think), they'd gone from replying to 20,000 thousand or so pieces of mail, to close to 50,000, without the ability to expand their DC-based policy staff (the people who research legislation and the answers to specific questions for Congressfolks).
As interns, keeping track of the mail was our primary task. We sorted it for the Legislative Assistants (individual staffers who handled a designated group of issues) who either passed it on to their Legislative Correspondent (who drafted an initial reply), wrote a draft reply, or sent it to New Hampshire if it was something the constituent affairs people could help with directly.
The highlight of my internship was getting to do the research necessary to reply to these letters and, a couple of times, to try my hand at writing a response. My letters always came back with allot of red ink before the LA was willing to ask for the Chief of Staff and then Charlie to approve it, but I was really proud to be able to part of the Congressional process, in which our Representatives take care to properly respond to every constituent no matter how outlandish their concerns (there were some people who literally emailed 5 times a day, so trying to piece all their concerns together in a 1-3 page letter was a real challenge sometimes).
One way or another, I find it disheartening that Mr. Hodes office is ignoring his constituents concerns so early on. Though I was obvisouly a Charlie supporter last election, I was really hoping that Hodes would come out and do his best to represent all his constituents, even those who think the 180$ grand he got from unions doesn't necessarily mean that he should support legislation that abandons the funadamental democratic principal of voter anonimity.
"We get the government we deserve"
But, if you have ever worked in government you probably would realize there are very few actual people who get real letters back. I sent one to my Representative, (R)Steve Buyer asking him about a position. I got some crap back which I laughed because he nevered answered my question.
It to bad our congressmen and senators can't hire competent interns who can actually respond to us as citizens.