For my day job, I have to send things to Congress Critters via e-mail from time to time, both here in Florida, and sometimes to the ones up in DC. Every year, we get a list of all the contact information for the various Representatives and Senators, and we start the mailing process, informing them of particular standpoints and view.This year however, the e-mail addresses for Florida State Governor Charlie Crist was missing. I thought nothing of it, and just kept using the e-mail address that was previously in our system.

Then, last Monday, I was asked to send something off via e-mail to him that was rather important (there were paper copies involved too, but those take days to get to where they need to be, and this was time sensitive material). Being that this was important, I wanted to double check all the major e-mail addresses, so I pulled up Crist’s webpage, and low and behold, there’s no e-mail address. I call his office up, and speak with ‘Rex’ who informs me that the governor no longer has an e-mail address that is used for incoming mail, and that all messages either have to go through a form-mail system or be snail mailed. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Open Government (please don’t contact us, cause you can’t. Sorry).
Then, today, I was asked to send something off to Representative Stearn. I pulled up my handy dandy contact sheet, and low and behold the entire Washington section was sans e-mails, so I did what anyone would do, and I called up his office, and was told the very same thing. All e-mail addresses are being phased out in favor of the form-mail system.

One of my coworkers mentioned that perhaps they were getting too much spam, but I say they should be able to handle that. Perhaps something else was getting too much to handle: millions of Americans having the ability to contact them at the drop of a hat, instead of going through some draconian mail form bullshit.

Bring back the e-mail, or correct me if I’m wrong, but either way, why can’t I use my own e-mail program (that I paid good money for) to contact the Representatives that I never voted for?