Debt comments cause overload

Contacting your congressional representative about the debt ceiling, as suggested by President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner in speeches Monday, may have proved difficult for some Spokane constituents Tuesday.

One of the most common ways to comment is by email, with a link found on a member of Congress’s website. But Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ website was down for at least half of the day, her spokesman reported.

“There was too much traffic on account of the Boehner and Obama speeches,” Todd Winer said. “It pretty much crashed the system.”

Websites for Washington Reps. Doc Hastings, Jaime Herrera Beutler, Dave Reichert and Adam Smith, and Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson were also down for much of the day.

Members of local progressive groups, including MoveOn.org, staged a protest outside McMorris Rodgers’ Spokane office at noon Tuesday. When one of the protesters told a McMorris Rodgers staff member her efforts to send a message to either Boehner or Majority Leader Eric Cantor were met with a “permanent failure” message, the staff member said GOP leadership email servers had been down for more than a week.

Winer said he wasn’t aware of problems with leadership email, and suggested calling Boehner or Cantor’s offices. A call to the speaker’s office was routed to patriotic music with an intermittent message to hold for a staff member who didn’t pick up for more than 10 minutes. A call to Cantor’s office asked the caller to leave a message, then connected to a voice mailbox that was full.