Letter to the Editor: No response to constituent e-mail communication

Being elected to Iowa office, a State Representative and State Senator of either party may expect her/his support of issues may not align with all constituents. If an elected feels especially strongly about an issue, it has been demonstrated s/he may vote in opposition to the majority of her/his constituents’ wishes.

What is (also) disconcerting is our State Representative and State Senator do not (even) acknowledge or respond to constituent e-mail communications. For all one knows our letters are automatically directed to trash. Such non-response is disappointing, less than encouraging and disrespectful.

What is doubly disconcerting is that our State Representative’s clerk apparently has been directed to, along with not responding, save those e-mail addresses so the senders may be recipients of the Representative’s mass missives.

This is an example of strictly “top-down communication,” as there is no acknowledgment or response to the input from all those represented.

Carolyn Cook

Newton