WASHINGTON – Call me, maybe?
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the only member of the New York City delegation who doesn’t have a staff member picking up the phone regularly.
The Post called the offices of all 13 lawmakers representing New York City – even those in high-profile positions like Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler – and a real person answered the call on every occasion, in every office location, except for calls dialed to AOC’s two offices.
The phones weren’t immediately answered at Rep. Adriano Espaillat’s office as he moved to his new Bronx district location, but an aide promptly picked up Espaillat’s Harlem and Washington, DC lines.
A call to AOC’s Jackson Heights office goes to a series of voicemails with no ability to leave a message as of Monday.
In DC, a constituent can maybe get a person on the line if the caller bypasses the office’s unique filtering system that aims to block outside callers from clogging up the phone lines.
Aides to Ocasio-Cortez say the issue is call volume. Their office deployed a special phone filtering system that blocks callers without New York or DC area codes from even making it through. Such callers get a message directing them to the Bronx Democrat’s website. There’s no option to leave a message.
“With the filter on only DC and New York phone numbers can get through,” spokesman Corbin Trent told The Post, acknowledging that his out-of-state cellphone wouldn’t be able to call the main office. “When you are getting the volume of incoming that we get, the most important thing is to try to filter out some of the volume to get the people you are actually supposed to be here to work for.”
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The House’s office of the Chief Administrative Officer confirms that area code phone filters are available for members concerned about high call volume. A rep couldn’t say how many members utilize the blocking service aside from AOC.
Other members of Congress with a large national profile have staff picking up phones in their DC and district offices consistently, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and AOC’s fellow freshmen “squad” members. The Post was able to get through even when calling from an area code outside of DC and not from the member’s home state.
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Aides for Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilham Omar – who were in the spotlight more than AOC this week with a high-profile press conference critical of Israel canceling their congressional trip – picked up the phones Tuesday when The Post called. Two calls to Tlaib’s office were routed to a live person even shortly after President Trump called Tlaib an “anti-Semite” Tuesday afternoon.
Critics of Ocasio-Cortez suggest making constituents play phone tag is proof that she’s more show pony than work horse.
“She has no plans to serve the people. That’s why she has no constituent services operation,” one Congressional Democratic aide told The Post. “If you’re a grandma in Queens who needs help with her Medicare and you call AOC’s ‘district office’ you get a recording that tells you to visit the website instead.”
“What kind of elitist nonsense is that?” the aide said. “Shameful, it’s all shameful.”
But Ocasio-Cortez’s office points to their work, saying they’ve opened 438 constituent services cases and already closed 301 of them, according to AOC’s spokesperson Anika Legrand-Wittich.
They point to the phone lines, too. Initially, the Jackson Heights calls were routed through DC – and subject to the filter – as the phone system was being set up. As of August, the district phone lines are up and running and not subject to a filter. It’s still in place in DC, according to Ocasio-Cortez’s office.
The phones were constantly ringing during a visit to Ocasio-Cortez’s DC office last month, and a few diligent young aides were picking up the lines and keeping a log of the calls on a spreadsheet. A typical day in July had 300 calls on average. In August, the volume went down to 100 per day because Congress is out of session.
On Monday when The Post called the district office, the voice of the congresswoman greeted the caller.
She goes through the options telling callers to press two “if you’re a constituent of New York’s 14th district.”
A number of options direct callers to her website – or tell reporters to email her communications team.
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“For all other questions or to speak to the receptionist, please press three.”
Dialing two and dialing three sends callers to the same place. It’s to a recording of a man saying “sorry to have missed your call. We are either on the other line or away from the phone. Please leave a message after the tone.”
A female recording then says: “I’m sorry, but this mailbox is full. Please try again later.”
Aides not answering the phones could also be attributed to AOC being slow to staff up.
First-quarter House spending documents show she ran the leanest operation among the New York delegation, which was in part due to being slow to open her first office – the Jackson Heights location – and she had just 13 staff members and two paid interns.
House offices can have up to 18 full-time employees and four part-time employees on the payroll at any time.
She’s since opened a second New York office — which doesn’t have a published phone number on her website — in the Bronx Office of Assemblymember Karines Reyes.
Ocasio-Cortez uses the space rent free.
Reyes said she was happy to help out because the partnership will benefit the public.
“This arrangement has been extremely helpful to our constituents because having a federal field rep in-house means we can help more people and handle a wider range of issues,” Reyes said.