Saturday, November 14, 2009

Speaking truth to power

All day yesterday I stewed about the inappropriate and inaccurate response I received from Senator Hutchison's office. At first, I didn't have any plans to send another message to her, but the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. I am one of her constituents, after all, and I do have the right to have my voice be heard, even if I don't agree with her position.

Last night I went back to her online message form, and sent the following:


Last week I contacted Senator Hutchison about problems I am having with my insurance company and expressing support for health care reform measures currently being considered by Congress.

In response, I got a form letter that made it very obvious that no one on Senator Hutchison's staff even read what I wrote. Her response doesn't address my concerns and ignores completely that I don't support Senator Hutchison's actions. I wrote to the senator hoping that my voice would be heard, and it's obvious that it wasn't at all.

You ought to be embarrassed at providing such poor service to your constituents. I used to supervise the Citizens' Assistance center for a statewide elected official, and I would have NEVER allowed such an inappropriate response to be sent.

Shame on you.

I'll be interested to see what kind of response, if any, I get back. Who wants to bet that I'll get the very same form letter again?

6 comments:

Dee at Pedestrian Palate said...

Good for you!

knittergran said...

I'm betting on a different form letter, with no more relationship to your letter than the first one had.

Baino said...

I'll bet you a jar of Vegemite that you don't even get a response this time.

Amy said...

I'm with Knittergran. Different form letter, same lack of contextual relationship... keep us posted!

Shelly said...

I'm glad that you did that. I understand and am fine with elected officials that have different political views than mine. Of course that's how it works. But I am so tired of being "represented" by people who don't even care what my views are.

Unknown said...

yeah they don;t read that shit, just count it in their "constituent contact" stats...