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Congressman Brad Wenstrup (R)- 2nd District |
In order to raise enough
money for the campaign trail, members of Congress must call donors anywhere
from 25 to 30 hours a week. On an episode of “60 Minutes”, Florida
Representative David Jolly introduced a bill to ban federal-elected officials
from dialing for dollars called the Stop Act.
Congressman of the 2nd
District in Ohio, Brad Wenstrup (R), had an opinion about the dialing for
dollars and the Stop Act.
When doing a radio interview
on 55KRC, Wenstrup was asked about the amount of time these members of Congress
spend per day and per week calling people for fund money.
“Well that’s not my world,
that’s for sure,” Wenstrup said. “I might spend two hours a month making phone
calls.”
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Still from "60 Minutes" episode |
Wenstrup explains that
instead of calling these donors for money, he actually uses the time to hear
from the people and get their opinions.
“I like to use that as a
tool actually because I like to hear from a lot of constituents and what’s on
their mind; how the government usually is not working well for them,” he said.
Although the Congressman did
not completely object to the amount of time spent dialing for dollars, he says
the amount of time seems practically unmanageable.
“5 hours a day is virtually
impossible, I sit on 3 committees and 6 sub-committees,” Wenstrup said. “4 or 5
hours a day is impossible, but I appreciate the intent.”
The Congressman explains how
dialing for dollars does not only effect members of Congress and the funds for
their campaigns, but it also has effects on citizens.
“Well anecdotal stories,
true stories if you will, that people are telling you make an impact on you
when you want to be able to say ‘Look, do you realize the consequences of
what’s taking place here in Washington and what it’s doing to the people in the
community?’” he said.
Wenstrup was questioned
about when he first came into office and if he was given instructions and
expectations to make these phone calls, regardless of the lack of time on his
schedule.
“What I see, in some way
there’s an effort to be a team and help those who are having tough races, but
no one has ever dictated to me anything that I had to do as far as my
campaigning, that’s up to me,” Wenstrup said.
This does not mean the Congressman
doesn’t have anyone calling to campaign for him.
“We have people who work on
the campaign side and do a lot of that and so the time I spend on it is very
minimal because I just don’t have that much time,” he said.
With all of this being said,
Congressman Wenstrup’s office did not provide a finite answer on whether or not
he approves or opposes the Stop Act. However, he did make it known that a large
portion of his time is not spent dialing for dollars.
Listen to the interview below:
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Megan Deierling-Reporter |
The fact that members of Congress
are dialing for dollars makes me wonder if they really care about the people
when they campaign or if they see people as dollar amounts. It also has me
speculating what other things members of Congress do to raise money and how
much real time they spend working for the people.
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