Thursday, November 03, 2005

Ya know how easy it is to gripe about the stupid things our congresspeople do, and how often we write them notes telling them what idiots they are? Well I like to balance that with telling them when they've done a good job--it only seems fair.

Shortly after Arlen Specter's smooth and diplomatic leadership of the judiciary committee in the matter of confirming John Roberts to the Supreme Court, I wrote him a note thanking him for his wise and capable leadership in the matter. (I lived in Phila for 5 yrs, and thought I owed him for all the nasty things I said and thought about him when I lived there.) Unfortunately, even though he is the chair of a national level committee whose work affects us all, he apparently can only accept compliments and good wishes from those currently in his state, even if you use his very special non user friendly web form. Funny, I have a notion that a few of my federal tax dollars find their way to supporting the work of the judiciary committee. Here's his auto-response.

[Just so you know, I had first tried to find a judiciary comm. web site where I could post a message to him.]
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From: Senator_Specter@Specter.Senate.gov
To:
Subject: Re: Courts
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 08:26:59 -0400
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 21 Sep 2005 12:26:59.0693 (UTC) FILETIME=[C36529D0:01C5BEA7]
Envelope-To: k-------------------

(Please do not reply to this email)

Thank you for taking the time to contact me.

I receive a large volume of E-mails, phone calls, faxes and letters every

week from concerned citizens like yourself.

Unfortunately, due to the high volume of mail, I can only respond if

you're a resident of Pennsylvania. If you need to find out who your U.S.

Senator is please go to http://www.senate.gov/.

If you are a resident of Pennsylvania, and still recieving this message,

it simply means that I need you to use my web form to send your message to

me. Please go to http://www.specter.senate.gov/, click on the link "Contact Info"

and then click on "Contact Form".