With phone lines jammed, can John Boehner
still get through to Rush Limbaugh's radio show?
Glenn Thrush:
House telephone lines are still jammed this morning after President Barack Obama urged the public in his speech last night to contact their members of Congress on the debt-ceiling gridlock.
An e-mail from the House Call Center shortly before 10 a.m. says House phone lines are near capacity, leading callers to sometimes get a busy signal.
Last night, several House and Senate websites crashed after Obama's prime-time speech had concluded. Many lawmakers urged constituents to contact them via Twitter because of downed websites.
The flood of calls and web traffic came after President Obama urged the public to contact Congress to move forward on the debt limit and a balanced deficit reduction plan, saying:
The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn’t vote for a dysfunctional government. So I’m asking you all to make your voice heard. If you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your member of Congress know. If you believe we can solve this problem through compromise, send that message.
Of course, it's not clear whether the people contacting Congress were supporting or opposing President Obama's call to action. And it's probably a bit much to expect an enthusiastic populist uprising in favor of a deficit reduction plan that features entitlement cuts, even if those cuts do include modest tax hikes on top earners. (That's especially the case given that pretty much everything people want for deficit reduction is off the table, and what they don't want is on the table.) But whatever their points of view, it appears a large number of people responded to President Obama's speech.
If you want to contact your member of Congress, here's a directory with the contact information you need.
9:17 AM PT: More here on the phone calls.