Syrian Refugee In Wisconsin Sues Against Travel And Refugee Ban, Technology Overwhelmed By Messages To Lawmakers, Conservative’s ‘Fourth Way Forward’

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A Syrian man who was granted asylum and is living in Wisconsin has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging President Trump’s travel and refugee ban. His lawyer explains the premise fo the case, and their goals for the case. The number of messages being sent to Congressional offices has risen dramatically over the last fifteen years, thanks in large part to the Internet. However, staffers are feeling overwhelmed by the volume of emails, calls, and letters. A guest shares ideas for new software and strategies to make sure constituents are heard from. We also talk with a conservative commentator, who says that with the right playbook, the Trump administration has a golden opportunity to help America.

Featured in this Show

  • Syrian Refugee In Wisconsin Files Lawsuit Against Trump Travel And Refugee Ban

    A Syrian man now living in Wisconsin who was granted asylum is challenging the President’s travel and refugee ban in federal district court in Madison. We find out from his lawyer what the grounds of the case are, and what they hope to achieve.

  • Congress Sees Uptick In Contacts From Constituents

    With a nation divided sharply along political lines, and emotions running high about cabinet picks and other issues in front of Congress, it should come as no surprise that more constituents than usual are contacting their senators and representatives.

    Wisconsin Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said recently phones in his office were being “overloaded” with calls leading up to the vote for Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.

    “We might field, depending on the issue, a few hundred phone calls a day, that’s when people are really energized about something,” Johnson said in the interview with CBS 58 in Milwaukee. “Sometimes it’s a few dozen, so this – the thousands of calls – are definitely an organized effort.”

    Two of Johnson’s Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate — Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, — voted against DeVos, who was ultimately confirmed. They cited pressure from constituents as an influence on their decision.

    The volume of constituent communication is overwhelming congressional staffers and the technology available to them.

    Seamus Kraft, the executive director and co-founder of The OpenGov Foundation, a nonprofit civic technology organization, said even though there has been a recent uptick, constituents trying to reach representatives isn’t a new problem.

    “I think that anybody who’s tried to call your congressman, anybody who’s sent a letter and not gotten a response, or sent a tweet and never heard anything back, knows exactly what we’re talking about,” Kraft said.

    “Congress is in the middle of a decades-long, slow-motion Healthcare.gov-style crisis of its information technology, its systems, its staffing. And it’s not just the mail, it’s not just the phones. Remember, these are the means for securing the public’s right, its First Amendment right to petition your government for the redress of grievances,” Kraft said.

    This bottleneck doesn’t just frustrate the public, it is difficult for congressional staffers, too, Kraft said. He described them as “young hardworking staffers who are trying to represent the views of their constituents, they’re trying to engage and Congress just haven’t given them the tools to do their job.”

    While phone calls and hard copy correspondence haven’t completely gone away, those forms of communication have certainly taken a back seat to electronic exchanges in our personal lives and in how we reach out to our elected officials, Kraft said.,

    “Technology’s become the critical infrastructure of our personal lives, of our educational lives, heck, with Tinder, right, even our love lives. It just hasn’t been brought to bear on the institution,” Kraft said. “Mail’s gone up, email’s gone up 548 percent over the last decade, and that’s a change that’s not turning around. The internet is out of the bottle, it’s not going back. Congress just hasn’t caught up.”

    But Kraft remains positive, calling the issue “totally fixable,” and added it shouldn’t be an issue of assigning blame, but having both parties — and all individual members of Congress — come together to invest in a solution.

    He pointed to how well and quickly society has developed and adapted technology to handle complex and sensitive activities like banking and communication.

    “Solutions exist,” he said. “It’s just is now a challenge to get the solutions into the institution, and adapting the rules and the culture to fit.”

  • Congress Is Flooded With Messages, But Technology To Deal With Them Lags Behind

    It’s easier than ever to send a message to Congress – thanks to apps and email. But Congressional offices are snowed under by the torrent of phone calls, emails, letters and tweets. So much so that no single voice is being heard and technology to deal with all this mail is antiquated, according to a guest from the OpenGov Foundation. The non-partisan organization has analyzed the problem and suggests buying new software and hiring more staffers to deal head-on with constituent concerns.

  • Conservative Broadcaster Sees Fourth Way Forward For Trump Administration

    Conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt interviewed Donald Trump 15 times during the now-president’s campaign. He sees an unparalleled opportunity for President Trump, a united Congress and well-placed Republican governors to make lasting and positive change for the country.

Episode Credits

  • Rob Ferrett Host
  • Kate Archer Kent Host
  • Judith Siers-Poisson Producer
  • Kate Archer Kent Producer
  • Andrei Vrabie Guest
  • Seamus Kraft Guest
  • Hugh Hewitt Guest