Voter discontent hits home as Fetterman, McCormick face calls for more accessibility

By Benjamin Kail, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

WASHINGTON — Mozart. Handel. Schubert. Beethoven. For almost 10 minutes the classical hits kept coming. Then a click.

“Sen. Fetterman’s office.”

This marked the first time Pittsburgher Maya Fischhoff had gotten through to a human.

She told the Post-Gazette she’s been calling her federal representatives regularly “because of the chaos in Washington,” with almost no one ever picking up for Democratic Sen. John Fetterman or Republican Sen. Dave McCormick. Staffers for Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, consistently answer the phone and address her concerns, she said.

“Fetterman and McCormick ... seem to be playing hide-and-seek with constituents,” Fischhoff said this past week, after a joint paid event focused on mentorship and a new book from McCormick and his wife was scheduled for Pittsburgh City Winery on Saturday, only to have the location pulled from the event page once progressive groups announced plans to protest.

That event then was postponed “due to an unforeseen logistical issue,” according to an email from the senators’ teams shared with the Post-Gazette. The groups Indivisible Pittsburgh and Mondays without McCormick still protested Saturday afternoon at Schenley Plaza.

Leaving messages for the senators “often feels like knocking my head against the wall,” Fischhoff said.

Fetterman and McCormick, both first-term senators, have emphasized their early, cordial bipartisanship, working together on legislation on immigration and expanding Department of Veterans Affairs burial benefits. While they disagree at least on fiscal and transgender policy, they’re unified on border security, combating fentanyl, and strong support of Israel and the Trump administration’s recent moves to deport pro-Palestinian protesters — even those with legal U.S. residency.

But the widespread confusion and concerns sparked by President Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s aggressive overhaul of the government — leaving a specter over the federal workforce, nonprofits and programs that serve Pennsylvania veterans, students, researchers, farmers, patients and more — has brought one message from constituents to the forefront: listen.

It’s turning up frequently in responses to the senators’ social media pages, with commenters demanding in-person town halls regardless of the issue or event the senators post about. It’s flooding Reddit, with almost two dozen users complaining about never reaching anyone at either senator’s offices on just one recent Pennsylvania subreddit post. Progressive Facebook groups have been sharing “Missing” signs with photos of the senators.

“Neither one of them answers their phones,” said Dana Kellerman, a veterinarian and member of the progressive group Indivisible Pittsburgh.

Fetterman and McCormick aren’t the only senators facing a barrage of phone calls during Trump’s busy first few months back in the White House. Last month, the Senate told staff in a memo that the chamber was “experiencing an unusually high volume of inbound calls. External callers may receive a temporary busy signal,” according to the Associated Press.

The Senate phone system grappled with 1,600 calls per minute in early February, compared to the usual 40, the New York Times reported.

Many constituents fed up with clogged phone lines have pressed for town halls back in Pennsylvania for weeks — at a time when House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has urged lawmakers to skip such events, alleging that “professional protesters” are using the forum to stir up viral shoutdowns.

Several town halls across the country have turned raucous, with people seeking answers, particularly from Republican lawmakers, on cuts to agencies like Veterans Affairs, or on the future of Social Security, Medicaid and other programs that constituents rely on — including in regions dominated by Trump voters — amid broad slashing led by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

“Everything is happening so fast,” said Dr. Gabriel Cisneros, a pediatrician from Squirrel Hill concerned about GOP proposals to cut Medicaid funding by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. “We’re trying to keep up.”

A protest in Oakland

Saturday in Schenley Plaza, several hundred people gathered, many holding signs that said, “Senators missing,” “Trump: You’re fired” and “”Hey Fetterman, be a better man. Resign." Oversize cardboard cutouts of McCormick’s and Fetterman’s faces bobbed through the crowd while an inflatable “Trump chicken” bounced in the wind.

Throughout the afternoon, chants rang out: “One, two, three, four, democracy’s worth fighting for. Five, six, seven, eight, McCormick, Fetterman we won’t wait.”

“We have chased them around town, moved this event each time they moved the event and they finally canceled,” Tracy Baton, director of Indivisible Pittsburgh, said about the postponed Fetterman-McCormick joint gathering. “And they canceled because they aren’t willing to stand up to their constituents. ... You can hear the people behind us chanting, ‘Liar, liar.’ They know when they’ve been lied to.”

The event focused on concerns many area residents have related to health care, Medicaid and federal funding cuts. Speakers during the nearly hourlong protest also touched on First Amendment rights and the detention of college students who participated in Palestine protests.

Holly Mawn, 33, of Lawrenceville said she attended the protest to keep the senators accountable “to the people that elected them. I’ve been calling and emailing and I just feel like it’s not really getting through. I maybe get a response half of the time.”

Similarly, Julia Tebbets, 51, of Sewickley, said she has called the senators regarding a number of issues. In response, Tebbets said one office responded with a message about Medicaid, an issue she had not even asked about.

Tebbets said she often attends protests with her mother, Marguerite Merrill, 76, of Sewickley

“We like to make noise so that people understand that we aren’t just lying down and taking this,” Merrill said.

Following the event, organizers presented boxes to collect letters that will be delivered to the senators.

A busy schedule

The senators have kept busy conducting interviews with news outlets and podcasts, attending hearings, introducing and voting on bills, and meeting with constituents and officials in the Capitol.

Fetterman made his second trip to Israel while Congress was out of session earlier this month, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

McCormick traveled to Pennsylvania for a week of constituent work before watching the NCAA wrestling championship with Trump last weekend in Philadelphia. He also held a telephone town hall covering a range of topics with nearly 14,000 residents this past Wednesday. Several constituents said there was only a half-hour advance notice posted on social media.

Dr. Kellerman said that almost “every photo op” the senators post on their active social media pages is “followed by constituents begging for a town hall.”

“I think it would help if you could go to one of their offices and meet with staff,” she said. “That’s what offices are for, and that’s not happening.”

She noted that in early February, as the administration announced cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, she and two others went to McCormick’s Downtown Pittsburgh office in the Grant Building, and a staffer met with them and took notes.

But since then, she and others said they needed an appointment before meeting with a staffer.

Lobby workers at the Grant Building told a Post-Gazette reporter last week that McCormick staffers were in their office, but to speak with them, an appointment made by phone was required.

Fetterman’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for McCormick told the Post-Gazette that the senator has “hit the ground running,” with visits to Pennsylvania almost every weekend since being sworn in on Jan. 3, “meeting with constituents and stakeholders on how he can best serve them.”

“One of his favorite days of the week is Wednesday when he hosts a constituent coffee in DC, and he is meeting with Pennsylvanians in his office every single day,” the spokesperson added. “His office has responded to thousands of constituent emails, phone calls and letters. Finally, he plans to have regular tele-town halls ... where he can engage with thousands of his constituents. He has been hard at work serving his constituents in Congress as they elected him to do and coming home to Pennsylvania at every opportunity.”

‘People are really mad’

The Trump administration says it’s targeting wasteful spending and fraud.

But many nonprofits, doctors, farmers, teachers unions and other groups say the gutting of federal agencies and broad cuts to programs and grants will hurt Pennsylvanians — particularly in economically vulnerable communities.

McCormick in a recent interview told the Post-Gazette that Trump won in November after campaigning on shaking up Washington. The administration and Musk are making good on that promise, he said.

“I’m monitoring it very carefully,” he said. “I want to support the president’s goals and his initiatives, but I also want to make sure that if it’s hurting Pennsylvanians, I know about it and we take corrective action.”

Dr. Cisneros, who was on McCormick’s tele-town hall, said the senator’s response to a question about “draconian cuts,” at a time when GOP tax plans would likely add to the national deficit, only helped solidify his view that the Trump administration’s moves are effectively “a heist ... to fund tax cuts for wealthy people ... an ‘Ocean’s 11’ smash-and-grab operation.”

But he said he appreciated McCormick for taking the time to answer some tough questions.

“It would be great to have these frequently and in person,” he said. “We’re all kind of siloed in a way with our own bubbles. Hearing each other’s concerns ... I think that’s a good thing.”

Asked about town halls in other parts of the country getting heated, Dr. Cisneros said, “We have to behave ourselves, be adults and have conversations. But it shows people are really mad.”

Lew Irwin, who teaches politics and government at Duquesne University, said House and Senate members are “the only direct touch points to the federal government ... so there’s a responsibility to connect with their constituents.”

“There are people who are professional protesters or are representing a particular viewpoint who are interested in being disruptive more than anything else,” he said. “But ... it’s the responsibility of the elected officials to clear the way for their actual constituents to be able to express their views.”

He said lawmakers can require people to register for town halls — a “simple way of figuring out if they’re constituents ... especially when you’re seeing so much disruption in the operation of the federal government and so many legitimate questions about the direction of Trump administration policy, and the unwillingness of the Senate to exert its authority.”

‘Overloaded’

The Post-Gazette over a few days made morning and afternoon calls to Pennsylvania lawmakers’ district offices to see whether anyone was available to help constituents.

Federal lawmakers across the country, including in Pennsylvania, often rely on automated systems to help handle calls. Only once — after 11 minutes of classical hold music on a Tuesday afternoon — did a staffer for Fetterman pick up. Earlier attempts to reach a staffer at the Democratic senator’s Pittsburgh office led nowhere — the same automated menu for all offices across the state, and a message letting constituents leave a voicemail.

Morning and afternoon calls to McCormick’s handful of offices also led to just one staffer picking up, in Philadelphia.

Callers on those particular days would have found more success hitting up their Western Pennsylvania U.S. House members, who don’t have to handle inquiries from a statewide constituency.

Workers in the district offices of Lee, who held a town hall March 20, and Reps. Chris Deluzio, D-Aspinwall, Mike Kelly, R-Butler, and Glenn Thompson, R-Centre, generally picked up the phone after one to three rings.

Calls to the Washington, Pa., and Latrobe offices of Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Peters, the chief deputy whip, went to an automated voicemail system.

But Reschenthaler announced Friday that his staff would hold mobile office hours throughout his district “to offer increased assistance to constituents experiencing problems with a federal agency,” or to help “with Social Security and Medicare issues, federal grant funding, passports and visas, immigration and naturalization services, veterans’ benefits and the IRS.”

When Fischhoff finally got through to someone with Fetterman’s team, she didn’t dive into any policy points.

“Instead ... I tried to give her my sense of some of the communication obstacles people are experiencing,” she said.

She suggested the senator provide more details on views on his website, that staff engage more directly over social media, or that volunteers help handle what she assumed “is too much (communications) work.”

While she’s still waiting for a response, she reached the senator’s Washington, D.C., office Friday morning.

A staffer indicated her suggestions for broader communications and engagement might run into a logistical divide between constituent services, which focuses on responding to emails, phone calls and one-on-one assistance, and the communications staff that handles the senator’s digital presence.

The staffer also apologized, she said, for the office being “overloaded” by calls.

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Staff writer Megan Tomasic contributed to this report.