Congressional E-mail,
International Incident &
Hoohah Faux Pas

CONGRESSIONAL E-MAIL: Stay with us; it’s an adventure worth following.

Two weeks ago, I decided it would be nice to be able to reach the entire Queens Congressional delegation by e-mail. It is the 21st century. Everyone and their brother (and sister) has e-mail: every business, every school, many households. And the Federal Government makes it available free to members of Congress. So who could imagine that Congress members (and their staff) do not readily receive and respond to e-mail?

E-mail is today’s version of the pony express. It is becoming – and will be – the accepted form of quick business communications in the future. So, if the members of Congress accept and respond to "snail mail" (conventional US Postal Service mail, named for its comparative speed or lack thereof), there is no reason that they don’t accept and respond to e-mail.

Yes there was. Read on.

To start, I did what any web-savvy person would; I went online and started at the US Congress site Thomas (thomas.loc.gov) named for Jefferson. I then went to the web pages of the individual members.

Nita Lowey

Nita Lowey: On the home page in large letters was, "Write To Nita: Click Here." The link opened an e-mail form addressed to: nita.lowey@mail.house.gov.

3/2 (Thursday) - In the afternoon, I did "Write to Nita." I wrote: Nita, Just a quick system check to see how long it takes to get a real response to Congressional e-mail. I’d appreciate an acknowledgement of this e-mail as soon as it gets to your desk. Regards, Michael Schenkler

3/2 (Thursday) - The same evening, I received a response from a Lowey congressional staffer asking me for my mailing address.

3/2 (Thursday) - I supplied the Trib’s address and identified myself as Queens Tribune Publisher.

3/3 (Friday) - Within a day, the same staffer responded acknowledging receipt and offering me DC and NY phone numbers if I wanted to chat with the Congresswoman.

3/3 (Friday) - I responded explaining that: I was trying to determine how long it took the e-mail to reach the Congresswoman.

3/6 (Monday) - I received a response from her chief of staff acknowledging receipt, assuring me that Lowey sees all e-mail and again offering a phone chat.

Pretty impressive — that’s what e-mail is all about. In total, there were about six e-mails in each direction — none taking more than a minute to compose and send. Yet there was effective communication and I’m told Lowey is aware of it.

We didn’t fare as well with the rest of the Queens delegation.

Carolyn Maloney (rep.carolyn.maloney @mail.house.gov), Greg Meeks (congmeeks@mail.house.gov) and
Joe Crowley (write2joecrowley @mail.house.gov) all had e-mail addresses displayed on their websites. I found them and sent the ol’ "system check, please respond" e-mail
on 3/2 (Thursday).

Greg Meeks

Meeks’ e-mail "auto-responded" saying they don’t respond to e-mail and gave me
a snail mail address if I wished a response.

It’s two weeks later, and I have not heard from Carolyn or Joe.

Granted, e-mail may still be new to the three but, c’mon. They have hefty staff budgets and we believe they are obligated to adjust to current technology. I’ll e-mail all three a link to this column on the web and wait to see if they respond.

Nydia Velazquez

Nydia Velazquez did not list an e-mail address, so I called and inquired. I was given the e-mail address of Velazquez’s chief of staff and I shall follow up by pursuing an address for access by the public.

THE E-MAIL DEBATE

Things got interesting with Anthony Weiner and Gary Ackerman. Both of their websites contained a mechanism — "Write Your Representative" — utilized by the House, whereby you could send an e-mail to the member who represents the district of your home address. It was not user friendly and did not provide direct e-mail access to the Congressmen. You had to plug in your home address (ZIP + 4), search, and then type your message. It prevented you from composing letters offline or easily corresponding with your elected representative.

Remember, they work for us.

I objected, so I called.

Ackerman and Weiner had similar stories. They felt if you made it too easy for the "crazies" out there, your e-mail box would be stuffed with endless nonsense. Both Ackerman and Weiner cited the gun lobby’s relentless effort to bombard them to the point of roadblock.

Weiner said he’d hear from "gun nuts, anti-semites and lunatics of all stripes to whom I am not responsible." He insisted that they had to be available to his constituents and not the endless lobbies with self-serving causes.

But, I told them both, you are not available to your constituents if you don’t provide an e-mail address.

Anthony Weiner

Anthony Weiner caved in on the first phone call. Although he believed, in principle, in his right to keep out the "crazies," "gun nuts" and "lunatics," he admitted he was also keeping out many constituents. He apparently had similar discussions or arguments with his staff. He informed us that he was immediately making the necessary changes to his web site and would be reachable by e-mail at: weiner@mail.house.gov.

On 3/4 (Sunday) we e-mailed him at his new web address: Anthony, Just a quick system check to see how long it takes to get a real response to Congressional e-mail. I’d appreciate an acknowledgement of this e-mail as soon as it gets to your desk. Regards, Michael Schenkler

On 3/6 (Monday) we received an e-mail from a Congressional staffer who failed to identify for which member he worked. We had unanswered e-mails out there to Crowley, Maloney, Meeks and now Weiner. So we e-mailed back and on 3/8 we found that we were in touch with Weiner’s office.

Granted, since we were the only one who knew Weiner’s e-mail address, there could not be a problem with volume. There was however, a live-person response.

Furthermore, during this effort over the past two weeks, I have exchanged numerous e-mails with the Congressman who is online regularly.

Gary Ackerman didn’t give in so easily. This was the guy who hosted a cyber chat after the State of the Union Address this year. Although no online whiz, for a brief moment in time he was the Congressional Internet Hoohah.

Ackerman, an old personal friend, has been on my e-mail address book for the better part of a year. His wife and I have been exchanging e-mail since the early 1960s — well, almost that long. But Ack held to his guns.

"You want me to give those gun nuts my e-mail address?" he asked in amazement, "I’ll solve the problem," he joked, "I’m not going to accept regular mail anymore. And, I’ll unlist my phone."

He, like Weiner, did make it clear that the behavior of certain lobby efforts and extreme groups made it difficult to function. Making contact much easier would just make the job much harder for Congress members.

Ackerman continued to resist – "I have no obligation to be bombarded by the ‘crazies’ out there."

We insisted. Your constituents have a right to e-mail access.

After phone call number three, Gary relented. He wanted to explore possible filters to block out certain unwanted e-mail but promised that he would have an e-mail address available to the public within 60 days. That was on 3/3. We’ll be on top of this one by May 2.

Gary, see you online.

INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT: The St. Patty’s Day Parade in Woodside was something special – it was all inclusive, welcoming gay groups unlike its Manhattan counterpart. Its theme came from an Irish Independence movement quote, "Cherish the children . . . equally." Therefore, children were invited to lead the parade. Daniel Dromm, one of the Queens gay hoohahs who is a teacher in Sunnyside, invited his class but Dromm explained to this paper he did not discuss that gay groups would be marching — after all, it was a St. Pat’s Day Parade and that’s what counted.

At the parade, Dromm noticed that the mother of one of his students — whom he knew to be from Ireland — had a "long look on her face." He approached her, convinced that she must be upset at seeing gay banners.

Not so, she told Dromm. She said she had seen gay groups march before in St. Pat’s Day Parades in Ireland. Her concern was not homosexuality; it was the sight of Hillary Clinton. No, she wasn’t anti-Hillary, she was anti-international audience.

She knew with Hillary present, the event would be televised and that her Protestant family back in Northern Ireland might see her children at the first Catholic-inclusive parade in which she had ever allowed them to march. There might be family grief for that.

It’s gays yes, Catholics no, in her Northern Ireland.

In Queens, we’re making progress.

THE INNER CIRCLE had more political intrigue than just the first face-to-face encounter of candidates Rudy and Hillary. From a Queens point of view, the room was abuzz about the guests seated at Table #74: Queens Dem County Leader Tom Manton and wife, Comptroller Alan and Carol Hevesi, State Senator Dan Hevesi and date, Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau and former Bd. of Ed. Prez Carol and Larry Gresser.

Alan and Tom together? Hmmm!

Beep wannabe Carol securing her frontrunner status seated next to Manton? Hmmm!

What’s Danny up to? Tune in next week.

HOOHAH FAUX PAS! E-mails from the ether in response to our error referring to former NY Guv Al Smith as a Republican:

#1 "Republican hoohah Al Smith"?

Fondly, Louis A. Lebovitz

#2 Hi, Mike. Just read your column and enjoyed it as usual, but I have to point out (since you brought up the topic of words and mistakes in it) that you made a beaut this week.

David Oats, former Tribune editor (Oats’ book, "Twilight of Power" is scheduled for a June 1 release).

RESPONSE: Of course, you’re right. You’re not the first to point out the error — I guess I need someone to proof the column who is either as politically astute and/or as old as you. Regards.

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Tamara Hartman contributed to this column.

Michael Schenkler can be reached at: MSchenkler@QueensTribune.com

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