WASHINGTON – Just five months into his job answering phones in the office of Sen. Al Franken, 22-year-old Jens Undlin finds himself a kind of emergency first responder as the volume of calls, letters and e-mails explodes in response to President Donald Trump's first weeks in office.
"It really is kind of inspiring," said Undlin, a recent St. Olaf College graduate in a flannel shirt and a telephone headset. Last week, Franken's office was fielding more than 1,000 calls a day — up from a typical 1,000 calls a month before Trump took office.
To sit with Undlin in Franken's front office is to sit on the front lines of a still-forming grass-roots pushback against Trump's agenda, in the form of old-fashioned congressional correspondence. The spike started with Trump's inauguration, and as he started to roll out Cabinet nominations and executive orders, many Minnesotans had plenty to say to their elected leaders.
"It's not too bad," said Undlin, who's been trained to take a level approach and listen closely as Franken's constituents speak their mind. "The people that call you and tell you their opinions, they're going out of their way to make a difference."
Last week, calls to Undlin and several staff interns helping out were most heavily in response to the nomination of Betsy DeVos, Trump's pick for education secretary. Undlin said he handled about 3,000 calls against DeVos and about 15 in support. He took another 1,000 calls or so from people upset about the executive order that temporarily halted refugee and other visitor admissions into the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries, and about 20 in favor, he said.
Voices on the left have urged Trump detractors to reach out to their representatives in Washington. At the Women's March the day after Trump's inauguration, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore said calls to congressional offices are as important as daily hygiene: "Brush your teeth, make the coffee, walk the dog and call Congress," Moore said.
In Republican Rep. Tom Emmer's office, e-mail volume tripled and the number of calls increased by about seven times in January of this year compared to 2016. The top issues, according to his office, were immigration, health care, the environment and government reform. At this time last year, the top issue was animal welfare. Staffers in the office recently added capacity to the main voice mail box because it was filling up so quickly.
"I'm not going to lie, sometimes you just have to stop and listen quietly," said Becky Alery, Emmer's spokeswoman, who has jumped on the phone a few times herself to help out with high call volumes. A few familiar constituents call the office daily, she said.
