Answer the phone, Kevin

First things first: I’ve been of voting age for. . . well, let’s just say “several decades.” During those decades, I’ve always thought that one of the greatest parts of our democracy was any citizen’s ability to call up one of our elected officials now and again and (politely) tell the official, or someone in their office, either that they had grave concerns about an upcoming bill or vote and hoped they might take it extremely seriously—or (more often, frankly) tell the official that they fervently disagreed with something they’d said or done and respectfully hoped they might reconsider what they’d said or done before acting on it.

I’ve done this literally dozens of times—calling the office of Congressman Dorgan, then Senator Dorgan, Senator Conrad, Congressman Pomeroy and Senator Heitkamp. Did the politicians answer the phone themselves? No—but their staffs were always polite and efficient and duly registered my complaint or concern, no matter what side of the issue they—or I—was on. Did I then see the Congressman or Senator instantly act on my advice, voting just as I had urged them to? Hardly. But I never felt that my call was in vain—and had enough friends in college with internships on Capitol Hill (I went to college in Washington, D.C.) who told me how every member of Congress paid close attention to the kinds of calls they were getting and the number of them.

Until this year. At first, I thought it was a fluke—ah yes, I told myself: I’m sure he’s on a much-deserved vacation; maybe he gave his staff some time off, too? But after calling Congressman Kevin Cramer’s Washington, D.C. office literally dozens of times over a period of months and never once getting through to an actual person, it occurred to me: Maybe this isn’t a bug in the system—maybe this is the way the system was built.

Most other politicians want to hear from their constituents. Congressman Cramer—who, as you know, has his eyes on a promotion to Heidi Heitkamp’s Senate seat—seems to go to great pains to avoid them. Town halls? Not so much—he likes to do “radio town halls,” where he takes questions over the phone. Are the callers pre-screened for friendly attitudes or softball questions? Well, that’s what I wanted to ask—the first time. But I got the answering machine, left a message and didn’t hear back. The Congressman did have some actual, live-in-person town hall-style meetings—I even saw pictures of them. I was surprised, though, that only a handful of people seemed to be showing up. Again, I wondered: Were these events invitation-only? Another call; another answering machine.

Then I remembered something that Congressman Cramer boasted about not so long ago: He said, proudly, that he would vote with President Caddyshack—other people call him Donald Trump—“100 percent of the time.” And when President Facts and Figures said that Hurricane Maria caused “from 6 to 18 deaths” rather than what an exhaustive, months-long study said—2,975 deaths—I called the Congressman’s office again to ask if he agreed 100 percent with this. When President Trade Warrior said that the trade war he started with China was going great, I called to ask if the Congressman was 100 percent on-board with this—despite the fact that average net cash farm income in North Dakota is expected to be down 17 percent in 2018 compared to the previous year.

I’m now well-acquainted with Congressman Cramer’s answering machine. Hey Congressman: Try answering the phone. Don’t worry about press hacks like me—but your constituents might actually be worth listening to.

Switching gears, a quick note on the battle over Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court. As of this writing, whatever did or didn’t happen in a locked bedroom between Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh when she was 15 and he was 17 is still a mystery. The only other person in the room—Kavanaugh’s best friend from high school, Mark Judge, who’s written extensively about the culture of blackout drinking in their school, and who included the quote “Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs” under his entry in their high school yearbook—has already refused to testify to the Senate. There’s been no shortage of finger-pointing, moralism, public-relations spin and political jockeying—this past week, Kavanaugh spent two nine-hour days at the White House, where he was coached by the full retinue of Trump administration lawyers and press people as they practiced mock testimony and helped mold Kavanaugh into a friendly-seeming guy who definitely didn’t try to rape anybody. Dr. Ford, meanwhile, who has two teenagers of her own, has been forced to move out of her house, arrange for private security for herself and her family, and is effectively in hiding after receiving multiple death threats. Dr. Ford is both eager to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to tell her story and eager for the FBI to investigate her allegations much as they’ve already investigated Kavanaugh’s background. (She’s already taken—and passed—a lie detector test administered by a former FBI agent.) President Law and Order says that such an FBI investigation “is not what they do.” Can somebody please tell him what the “I” in FBI stands for? The Republicans who control the Senate want to move Kavanaugh’s confirmation along as quickly as humanly possible.

I’ll ask only this: Who do you think really wants the truth to come out? The person who wants a proper investigation and has come forward at great risk to herself, her reputation and her family—or the judge and political party that stands to gain a lifetime appointment to the highest office in the land if everybody just shuts up and votes along party lines as fast as they can?

Corey Seymour is a proud NRHS graduate who went on to study political science, economics and literature at UND and Georgetown University. A former writer and editor on the National Affairs Desk at “Rolling Stone” and at many other magazines, he now works as a senior editor at “Vogue” in New York. Write him at [email protected].