Lawmaker May Care About D.C., But, Please, Hold the Phone Calls

Rep. Charles Boustany was deluged with calls from D.C. folks after it was wrongly reported that he said the city already has 535 representatives in Congress. (Brad Kemp - Photo By Brad Kemp/the Lafayette Daily Advertiser)

District residents may have suffered a setback in their campaign for voting representation, but they had some sweet revenge yesterday.

Sort of.

During Thursday's rancorous debate, a congressman declared that D.C. residents don't need a full-fledged representative in the House. After all, he said, they already have 435 House members and 100 senators who care deeply about them.

Washington is "the only city . . . that every senator and every member of Congress has a vested interest in seeing that it works properly, that water works, sewer works," he said.

The result? Phone calls deluged the office of Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) after a local blog, http://dcist.com, challenged him to live up to those words and urged local residents to call him immediately with concerns, big and small.

"Meet Your New Representative, D.C." the blog proclaimed, adding that Boustany "claimed us as his own." It even posted a picture of the congressman.

"Since we can't have our own representative in the House," it told Boustany, "we'll just have to settle for you."

Springing into action, D.C. inhabitants called Boustany's office to complain about garbage. They demanded he fix potholes. They griped about the schools.

And, Mr. Congressman, what about all the rats?

Many recounted their experiences in posts on the blog:

"I just gave a call to ask about garbage collection. And Man, our reps are not very friendly."

"I'm going over to Rep. Boustany's office right now. A constituent meeting, if you will."