No response from Congressman on climate change

Congressman James Renacci

The Congressional Climate Change Project attempted to contact Congressman James Renacci over a three-week period to get his stance on climate change and was unable to get a response.

The Project first contacted Congressman James Renacci’s office by phone.  A re-direction by an intern moved the focus to contacting the Congressman’s Communications Director Elizabeth Litzow.  After being unable to reach Elizabeth Litzow, the Project sent the first of three emails over the course of the three weeks the Project went on, none of which received a response. 

The Project attempted to call Elizabeth Litzow five times during the duration of the project. In the second phone call, we were able to talk to Elizabeth Litzow.  In that conversation, we were rushed off the phone as Elizabeth Litzow said, “I have to run to a meeting”.  Elizabeth Litzow did say, before the one interaction ended, that she would send an email with the information we are looking for.  The Project received nothing.  In the following three phone calls, the intern answering the phone told us that Elizabeth Litzow was not available or in a meeting at the time of the call.

As a result, after three-weeks of phone calls and emails, the Congressional Climate Change Project was unable to get Congressman James Renacci’s stance on climate change.

Author: Chris Yamnitsky 

As a student journalist, I found it very frustrating that our members of Congress do not have enough time to give us only five minutes to talk about a very hot button topic in politics today.  From this assignment, I learned that many times in journalism, you have to be as persistent as possible to get the answers you seek.  But sometimes, even with a high amount of persistence, you still may not find what you are looking for.  This can be very frustrating and makes it more difficult to get the correct answers from the people you want to talk to. Another lesson I learned is that people do not take student journalists seriously.  I think contacting a Congressman should not be as difficult as this assignment made it out to be.  As students, and as voters, we should be able to talk to our Congressman, or at least someone who can give us the answer, to any questions we have. Especially with a hot button topic like climate change.