WASHINGTON — By now, many people have noticed that trying to get in touch with members of Congress might take, well, an act of Congress.

Phone lines are jammed.

Voicemails are full.

Emails are responded to with form letters.

And some constituents are questioning the accuracy of what their representatives are telling them when they do reply.

So what gives?

Phone lines

Daniel Keylin, senior adviser to Sen. Thom Tillis of Nebraska, told McClatchy that Tillis’ staff is answering calls around the clock. But as is the case whenever a new president takes office, he said, they’ve experienced a higher call volume, with Tillis’ constituents wanting to share their opinions on Trump’s nominees and policies.

He said the number of calls has caused some to get disconnected or get a busy signal.

He said there have also been issues with the Senate voicemail causing poor quality issues for both the caller and the receiver, similar to listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher.

Keylin provided a notice from the Senate sergeant at arms, who indicated that instead of the usual 25-40 calls the Senate receives per minute, the server is taking in about 1,500-1,600 per minute. The sergeant at arms said that caused some calls to go straight to voicemail; it also caused choppy voicemails or delayed relays of the voicemails.

The sergeant at arms assured Senate staff that it was working to increase the server capacity, but that would not be an overnight fix.

And that has left some constituents emailing their representatives, but the response is leaving a lot to be desired.

Calls and emails

Megan Robinson, a constituent of Rep. Mark Harris, was among those who said she tried calling and emailing.

“My husband and I both tried calling the two North Carolina senators (DC and NC numbers) for days and only got busy signals,” Robinson told McClatchy in an email. “For Rep. Harris, we tried several of his numbers as well and got ‘voice mail box full’ messages.”

Harris’ North Carolina office is having problems with their digital phone service, but his team says they’re actively answering the phone in Washington.

Robinson said after expressing her frustration that she could not reach Harris’ staff by phone, she did receive a call to let her know that they received her email. She said she received, days later, a generic email response that made her question its accuracy.

Robinson, who lives in Matthews, said she reached out to Harris and Sens. Thom Tillis and Ted Budd, all Republicans, about her concerns on the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, and billionaire Elon Musk.

“The concerns I expressed were about the access of DOGE to our personal data,” Robinson said. “My family has been the victim of many of the large corporate hacks, leading to years of having to do privacy monitoring and fight potential identity theft. I have major concerns about unelected 20-year-olds without security clearance, as well as Musk, who is a self-professed drug user, having access to all our data.”

Robinson said it doesn’t seem safe or legal.

Musk posted on social media he uses ketamine, the drug that killed "Friends’" star Matthew Perry, to battle his depression. He later added that it was prescribed to him. The Wall Street Journal previously reported Musk’s history of other drug use, and concerns that it could compromise his company’s ability for needed security clearances.

Robinson said she’s written to Budd several times over the past few months without response.

A spokesman for Budd’s staff said in response, “It is common practice for our office to log, aggregate, and relay to Senator Budd all constituent communications we receive. Whether it’s speaking with individuals on the phone or responding through written correspondence, our office makes every effort to respond to the needs of any North Carolinian who contacts our office.”

She wrote to Tillis in January and received a form response of the kind that is commonly prepared by each lawmaker’s teams to address the concerns of constituents due to the large number that are submitted to various offices each day. In that letter, Robinson wrote about her concerns on confirming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary. She also wrote to him about DOGE, without a response.

She said she feels like her representatives are hiding from their constituents’ concerns.

It’s a sentiment that has been expressed in several emails sent to McClatchy, as well as at protests outside Tillis’ office reported by other news outlets and on online forums, such as Reddit. Entire threads have been written recently from North Carolinians about the form letters they’re receiving from members of Congress on various topics and calls to flood lawmakers’ phone lines

Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota, said on social media the calls coming in are from constituents, like Robinson, who are concerned about Musk.

Who is Musk?

Musk, 53, is the richest man on Earth. He is a billionaire from South Africa who immigrated to the United States in college. He owns Tesla, SpaceX and X, the social media platform.

He has supported Presidents Barack Obama and Trump, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, and Kanye West and Andrew Yang’s 2020 campaigns for president.

And he is now serving as a senior adviser to the president.

What is DOGE?

Trump created DOGE under an executive order on Jan. 20.

The name quickly invoked laughs from people who paid close attention to internet trends in 2013, because DOGE is also a meme of a Shiba Inu, a dog named Kabuso, who shared her internal thoughts in short, broken English. It spun off the first cryptocurrency to be based on an internet meme that December.

In Harris’ email back to Robinson, he correctly explained that DOGE is not a permanent official department within the federal government — it expires July 4, 2026 — and that its mission is to modernize software and technology systems within the federal government to improve efficiency. His characterization is almost a direct copy and paste from Trump’s executive order.

“This effort will no doubt lead, as it already has, to identifying wasteful government spending,” Harris wrote. “It will also produce recommendations to restructure federal agencies or eliminate excessive regulations.”

DOGE officials reports cuts the agency makes to federal spending on its official website. DOGE says those cuts came from fraud detection and elimination, lease and contract cancellations or renegotiations, asset sales, grant cancellations, workforce reductions and programmatic changes, among other things.

What isn’t DOGE?

Harris emphasized in his letter to Robinson that DOGE can not make cuts or eliminate federal agencies without an executive order from Trump or congressional approval. He says because of that DOGE will audit federal agencies and give Trump advice on how to improve efficiency.

DOGE, however, has taken credit for numerous cuts across government agencies.

Musk is currently facing a lawsuit out of New Mexico filed by 12 attorneys general questioning the amount of power Musk has been given by Trump without congressional approval or constitutional authority.

Over the weekend, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan received a court declaration from White House Office of Administration Director Joshua Fisher, saying that Musk is not in charge of DOGE Service or DOGE Service Temporary Organization, but an adviser to the president.

The court document confused many, especially since Trump wrote only seven days after his election: “I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency.”

Ramaswamy later chose to focus on his political career rather than lead DOGE.

DOGE and the Treasury

One of Robinson’s main concerns when she reached out to Harris about DOGE and Musk was how much access DOGE employees had to data.

In Harris’ response to Robinson, he told her that DOGE had read-only access to the Treasury Department’s payment program, adding “contrary to what the media would like you to believe, there is no evidence that DOGE obtained access to any sensitive data unlawfully.”

Trump’s own administration has contradicted that claim, The Associated Press reported. Treasury Department officials initially said that the DOGE team had access to a read-only file, but later clarified that a DOGE team member was unintentionally granted the ability to edit code.

Harris further told Robinson that Musk holds security clearance because of his numerous business ventures’ work with the Defense Department.

There’s been numerous questions surrounding Musk’s security clearance in recent weeks. Musk posted on social media that he’s had top security clearance for years. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Feb. 6 she wasn’t sure. And the Wall Street Journal article reporting Musk’s drug use quoted unnamed sources from one of his companies who were concerned Musk’s admission of his drug use could jeopardize their security clearances if they applied for a higher level.

Harris went on to say that DOGE has reason to conduct an audit of the Treasury Department’s payment programs after the U.S. Government Accountability Office found, last year, $236 billion in “improper payments” made by the federal government in the prior fiscal year and that it estimates $2.7 trillion in “improper payments” could have been made over the past 20 years.

Harris’ report of the GAO’s finding is accurate.

On March 26, 2024, GAO released a report that these payments could have been made due to poor record keeping, overpayment or fraud. The GAO said these payments were made across 14 agencies and 71 programs. The Department of the Treasury’s Earned Income Tax Credit made up $22 billion of the improper payments.

Harris’ email quotes the GAO’s finding that 74% of the overpayments, or $175 billion, went to people who are dead or no longer eligible for government assistance.

Supporting DOGE

Harris told Robinson he fully supports DOGE’s efforts to improve government efficiency and cut wasteful spending. He added that it is common sense for federal agencies to have the best technology systems in place.

Harris reminded Robinson that shortly after Trump won his election, he announced Musk would lead DOGE as a special government employee.

“Due to his track record as a businessman with an incredible mind for innovation, I believe Musk is more than qualified to lead this initiative,” Harris said.

Harris is far from the only member of Congress sending out form letters in response to complaints from constituents. Rep. David Rouzer, a Republican from Wilmington, and Tillis have had some of their responses posted to online message boards, with multiple users saying they received identical letters and one user mocking Rouzer for sending back a letter on an entirely different topic than he wrote in about.

Tillis’ letter on Musk, while similar, focuses on Musk’s work to cut wasteful spending in the Treasury and his own support of Musk, something he’s also spoken out about on the Senate floor.

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