Constitutent Service and Coronavirus

The Davidson book distinguishes Congress as a representative assembly from Congress as a lawmaking body.  In practice, there is a overlap between the two Congresses:  as Jill Lawrence explains, constituent service uncovered the VA scandal, which in turn triggered VA reform legislation.

As Kevin Kosar points out, constituent service is now more important than ever:

Consider:

1. The recently enacted Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) is 247 pages long and quite complex.
2. The threat of coronavirus has led legislators in both the House of Representatives and Senate to bail back to their home districts and states.
3. That it was Congress that enacted the CARES Act, which media frequently misidentify as the “Trump stimulus package.”

Altogether these facts argue for each member of Congress to direct his or her office’s energies more heavily toward constituent services. Immediately.

Not least because voters will struggle to understand just how the CARES Act can help them, and also will need help dealing with executive branch bureaucracies in charge of dispensing aid. (And there are and will be challenges.)

Then there’s the more mundane political truth: helping voters and claiming credit for government assistance is smart politics. The $2 trillion in CARES Act benefits were dispensed by Congress, and every legislator rightly can help voters remember that it was the legislature that is the source for the assistance.

And that objective will not be achieved by sitting back and letting the Administration claim credit, and by hoping folks can get the answers they need via surfing to SBA.gov and SSA.gov.

Matt Fuller at Huffington Post:

Short of going to the hospital, there isn’t much help for normal people if they catch the coronavirus. But if a member of Congress contracts COVID-19, they have a special number they can call.

According to an email obtained by HuffPost, the White House has created an “emergency” hotline for congressional lawmakers should they get sick or have issues in their districts related to the coronavirus. The email sent from the White House to members of Congress notes that this hotline ― which is being manned by former Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), a doctor ― is “only for emergencies.”

“To reiterate, this hotline is to be used for emergency coronavirus-specific questions and inquiries,” the email reads (italics and bold in the original).

That doesn’t mean the number is just to serve lawmakers if they get sick. A senior White House official confirmed to HuffPost that the hotline is meant for members to inquire about emergency issues they might be having in their states and districts. But it is also a potential access point to serve them if they do contract the coronavirus.

The email from the White House notes that this number is to be distributed to “Members and Senators only,” and includes a list of agency numbers and emails for nonemergency issues.