'Your Call is Very Important to Us'

Congressman Robert Latta (R-OH)
District 5

Congressmen are not strangers to call centers. Congressmen spend around 30 hours a week making phone calls to people asking for money. The money goes towards a congressman’s personal campaign. Republicans and democrats have call centers on opposite sides of the street in Washington, D.C.

The key to staying in office: fundraising $18,000 a day. There is a calling script for republicans and democrats to use when they make phone calls. There is a profile of the selected donor along with the calling script.

Republican Congressman David Jolly (F-13) wrote a bill to stop congressmen from calling people. Congressman Jolly called the bill: The Stop Act. This past February, Congressman Jolly introduced the bill to Congress. To date, only eight other members of congress co-sponsored the bill.

Congressman David Jolly on 60 Minutes in "Dialing for Dollars".

Congressman Jolly was interviewed about the bill in a 60 Minutes’ piece called “Dialing for Dollars”. When Congressman Jolly was a newly elected congressman, he told 60 Minutes Reporter Norah O’ Donnell that his first responsibility in Congress was to make $18,000 dollars a day.

A daily schedule for Congress specifically gives congressmen 4 hours to make phone calls for personal fundraising.

On January 19, 2016 a press release from Congressman Jolly’s website shared his opinion of Congress’s work ethic. “We can’t have a part-time Congress in a full-time world,” Jolly said.  

My computer-assisted reporting class contacted Ohio’s Congressional Delegation. Ohio’s Fifth District Congressman Robert Latta’s office has no comment on the issue.

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Thea Emroll

I think it is outrageous to spend 30 hours a week calling people for money. Congressmen should be more concerned with issues in our government than calling to support themselves.  Congressmen can make phone calls about fundraising, but they can’t pick up the phone and answer questions from constituents.