Trying to get a message to Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake? Good luck

Constituents are swamping Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake with phone calls about President Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees, and the senators' staffs are struggling to keep the office voice-mail boxes open, leading to frustration for some callers.

Prompted by liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org and other organizations, constituents are calling in numbers so great that McCain and Flake's offices say they are overloading the system. Once the voice-mail boxes are full, no more messages can be accepted.

"I feel like our representatives should be hearing us, but nobody is holding town halls and we're not able to leave messages," said Kerri Gardner, a Tucson Democrat and one of several people to contact The Arizona Republic about not being able to connect. "It's frustrating that we're not being heard."

Spokespeople for McCain and Flake both said the volume of calls has been overwhelming but said that staff members do the best they can to stay on top of workload and process voice mails as quickly as possible.

"Senator McCain’s office makes every effort to listen and respond to constituents in Arizona and citizens across the country who contact our office," Julie Tarallo, McCain's communications director, said in an email. "Due to the large number of calls we receive each day, our system does not always have the capacity to manage the volume."

Tarallo encouraged constituents unable to reach the office by phone to write to McCain through his Senate website's contact form.

Jason Samuels, Flake's spokesman, said Flake's website allows constituents to email Flake. They also can contact Flake via his Facebook page.

"Sen. Flake’s policy is to review every constituent message that comes into the office, regardless of whether it’s submitted by phone, email or post," Samuels said by email. "Because of the time and effort it takes to properly answer and log every constituent call into the office, there are days where the voicemail can become overloaded."

Some constituents who have been stymied in their attempts to get messages to McCain and Flake were not especially sympathetic to the claims that the system is overloaded. Some said they don't want to send a message through a website.

Ginna Martin, a Glendale Democrat, said she's not trying to be mean but that elected officials work for the people and should be accessible, even at times when calls are heavy.

Martin was calling McCain and Flake to express her opposition to Trump's choices of Rex Tillerson for secretary of State; Jeff Sessions for attorney general; and Betsy DeVos for secretary of Education. She also wants them to work in a bipartisan way to fix problematic parts of the Affordable Care Act and not repeal the whole thing.

"We did get through to Flake, but McCain is like trying to get to the pope. It's total lockdown," Martin said. "You can't even send an email; it bounces right back.

"They need to give us another avenue to have our voices heard."

Penny Wigley, a Peoria Democrat, said senators are sending a message that they aren't listening and that they don't care.

Wigley, who is opposed to Scott Pruitt, Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, said she tried for 10 days straight to leave a message for Flake.

"Jeff Flake doesn't care what we think, whether we're Republicans, Democrats or independents. He doesn't want to hear it," Wigley said. "They say go and send an email. An email? Really? They are going to read those emails? I don't believe those people care."

Gardner said she wanted to register opposition to the Tillerson nomination and to getting rid of the Affordable Care Act without enacting a replacement. But she said she always finds McCain's voice-mail boxes full.

"I'm not surprised that Monday morning it was full, since over the weekend there was a lot of stuff that happened," she said. "But his D.C. one has been full forever, or at least the last two or three weeks."

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