Constituent Services

after the backlash from the Paycheck Fairness Act vote.
When I called the Boston office yesterday, the message service said they were unable to accept messages at this time.  When I called the Washington D.C. office, the line was answered almost immediately.

Is this what you do because it is illegal to pull the fire alarm?

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p>If I was Senator, I’d tell my constituents to express themselves at the next election.

Info on how many staffers work in the offices don’t seem to be available on-line.

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p>However, Kerry has four offices and Brown has two.  Right there, a minimum of twice as many.  Kerry is also Chair for a while of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and has access to staff there.  Brown has Greg Casey and a Kelly Girl (not that an advantage isn’t there…).

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p>Btw – the ‘human’ at Kerry’s office – you SURE about that?

Forgive the Brown people.  They’re new to this and didn’t know a VIP was calling.  And props for the vernacular… – just sayin.

how embarrassingly defensive the Brownies are about this issue!

I’ve found both of them to be not as responsive as I’d like, though in different ways.  I’ve actually usually reached a human pretty quickly at both Brown’s and Kerry’s DC offices.

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p>Brown’s office’s main responsiveness flaw is that they rarely have a clue about the issue I’m talking about, can’t give me an answer if they don’t have the Senator’s talking point printed out somewhere, and if they do have it, the answer doesn’t make sense or defies logic, and they can’t explain or defend it.

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p>Kerry’s office will actually sometimes get me to an aide who is familiar with an issue, who will speak intelligently about it.  That’s great.  Unfortunately, getting Kerry’s position on most things is often impossible, until after he’s voted.  “The Senator hasn’t released a statement yet” is a phrase I’ve heard far more times than I would’ve liked, and it’s a brick wall.

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p>Sometimes they also try to tell me to send an email or a letter if I want an answer to my question, but I know better: When I email or fax or send paper mail to Kerry’s office, they do always respond (by email to an email, by postal mail to paper) – but the response merely thanks me for contacting the Senator, without any mention of what I contacted him about, let alone what Kerry thinks about it or is doing about it.  It’s a completely generic response, the same one every time.

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p>I miss Senator Kennedy.  That office was responsive, I was always able to get to someone knowledgeable about the issue, they knew Kennedy’s positions and would tell me, and email & postal responses from Kennedy addressed the issue I contacted them about and told me a bit about Kennedy’s views and actions on the subject.

See post below, they were able to get thru to Sen Brown? You got some splaining to do…

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p>I called Senator Brown’s office (6.00 / 7)
I was told that the reason he voted no to this bill was because it would result in excessive and costly litigation costs for small businesses.  Apparently he is going to introduce a bill that will protect smaller businesses from being ruined by excessive litigation. Perhaps the way to avoid litigation is to pay the right wage in the first place. Protection for small businesses means there will still be a block of women left behind. A lawyer is not going to take up a case where there is not a clear discrepancy in pay, so they should not even have to worry about it if they are practicing wage equality.
Sounds like a stall tactic to me.  Senator Brown is the happy “NO” guy.  NO NO NO.  

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p>”Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
-President Lincoln

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p>by: liveandletlive @ Thu Nov 18, 2010 at 10:37:42 AM CST

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p>by: you @ soon
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p>Otherwise click cancel.

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p>You must enter a subject for your comment
From my last line of the post … (6.00 / 2)  

and got a human pick up the line at both offices.  I hardly think one bad experience is enough to say Brown is not good at constituent services.

I used Senator Brown’s online form to register my disappointment over his endorsement of Jeff Perry. What did I get in return? A lengthy letter about his stance on healthcare reform. Not impressed.