Senators use e-mail to hear citizens’ views during impeachment

By DARYL LANG
Collegian Staff Writer

With the impeachment trial in the peak of its "excitement," U.S. Senate offices are being flooded with phone calls, letters and a crazy new thing that wasn't around the last time Congress considered removing a president -- e-mail.

E-mail is as good a way as any to contact U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., although phone calls are still a more common way to voice opinions, said John Ullyot, Specter's spokesperson.

Specter's staff keeps a tally of how constituents want the senator to vote in the trial and relay that information to Specter, Ullyot said.

U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., tries to respond to both e-mail and postal mail, said Jennifer Miller, a staff assistant at his office.

"E-mail has really added an entire new spectrum to contacting government officials," said Steve Smith, president of the Penn State College Democrats.

But e-mail's popularity might work against its effectiveness.

Hard-copy letters are probably more likely to be noticed because there are fewer of them, said Melissa Kowalski, chair of the Penn State College Republicans.

And with so many e-mails pouring into Senate offices, it becomes easy for messages to get ignored by staff or delayed by overloaded computers, said Amy d'Oliveria, a spokesperson for SenateVote.com.

SenateVote.com, a new nonpartisan World Wide Web site based in Washington, D.C., is trying to work around this problem.

Users can type their opinions into a form on the site. The people who run the site then print out a copy of the messages and hand-deliver them to senators' offices.

After less than a week of operation, the site already has received almost 10,000 responses, d'Oliveria said.

SenateVote.com will deliver the first batch of messages to Capitol Hill tomorrow.

Computerized messages are an easier alternative to regular post office mail, said d'Oliveria.

"You're right there. You're in front of it. It's very immediate," she said.

Other sites on the Internet make it easy to connect with senators.

The Senate's home page, www.senate.gov, lists contact information for each senator.

Votenet, at votenet.com, provides a form for sending e-mail directly to senators.