Texas Republicans in the U.S. House get flood of mail, calls over health care bill

Dallas Morning News ^ | Tuesday, September 8, 2009 | MARJORIE KORN

[tripl3six3s]

WASHINGTON – It's no surprise that Democratic lawmakers got an earful about health care legislation when they went home this summer. But Texas Republicans in the House who have already denounced the legislation have also been bombarded by correspondence from highly informed constituents. The office of Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington, received an unprecedented amount of mail, spokesman Sean Brown said. In the five weeks prior to the health care debate, Barton received nearly 400 e-mails. In the five weeks after it began, he got almost 2,800. "We have legislative correspondents that are tasked with returning mail, and they have been a lot more stressed out over the past couple of weeks," Brown said, calling the piles of letters "daunting." Rep. Jeb Hensarling from Dallas has had more district office visitors and larger attendance at his town hall meetings than at any other time in his seven-year tenure, staffer Brian Chase said. Letters, e-mails, calls and visits – generally opposed to the health care bill – total nearly 4,300. "Most people do agree some type of reform is necessary, but not like the proposals in work now," Chase said. Even Rep. Pete Sessions of Dallas has been flooded with mail and telephone calls, said spokeswoman Emily Davis. There's little chance that Sessions, chairman of the GOP's congressional election committee, would vote for the Democratic bill. Correspondence has more than doubled compared with this time last year, and the overwhelming majority is against the health care bill, Davis said. Such a level of political engagement is unusual, said Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

[tripl3six3s]

Sounds like they're in for the long run.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Perhaps Texas will be the next truly Free Republic. :)