Released: June 12, 2006

Congress erects hurdles to consituent e-mail

Source: By Jeffrey H. Bimbaum, Washington Post (Free Registration)

Congress to lobby groups [and constituents]: Drop dead! That could be the headline on the latest development from the House of Representatives. Last month the House quietly began to make it harder for interest groups to send large numbers of e-mails to lawmakers.

Increasingly, citizens are being forced to demonstrate a basic knowledge of mathematics to have any chance of communicating electronically with their congressional offices. At the end of May, the House started to offer congressmen the chance to add an extra obstacle—the completion of a math problem—to their already difficult-to-penetrate e-mail systems. The purpose, officials said, was to cut down on the deluge of messages they receive.

The reaction from K Street has been swift and loud. “It’s very disturbing,” said Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way.

“We are concerned,” agreed David Willett, spokesman for the Sierra Club.

Most offices in the House are pretty impregnable as it is. Generally, before a person can send an e-mail to a member of the House, he or she must go to a lawmaker’s Web site, click on “Write Your Rep,” select the congressman’s state, type in a Zip code that is in that state, and then fill out a form that includes name, address, city, e-mail address and phone number.

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