By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 24, 2007

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."

Boustany's office was taken by surprise. "We have been flooded with phone calls asking us to fix streetlights and pick up trash," bemoaned Paul Lindsay, spokesman for the congressman.

But wait -- Boustany was a victim of mistaken identity.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) actually made the statements.

C-SPAN misidentified the speaker during a live telecast of Thursday's proceedings.

Any regrets were probably mild: Boustany, too, opposes the voting rights bill.

The dcist blog corrected the mistake by early afternoon, and D.C. residents gamely began aiming their requests at Gohmert.

"I just called Mister Louie's office and told them that I was thrilled that the Congressman cared so much about the District of Columbia," said one blogger. The writer reported extending an invitation for Gohmert to attend a town hall meeting on U Street.

Gohmert's office wouldn't comment.