George Santos' office was such a mess other Congress members had to pick up slack: report
Rep. George Santos (R-NY), expelled from office late last year, was such a disaster that other members had to step in and pick up the load of helping those in his district, Politico revealed in an interview.
One of the key roles of members of Congress is helping constituents navigate problems they're having with the government. Issues with a passport? Call your member of Congress. Problems with getting someone at Social Security to talk to you? Call a congressional office.
In an interview with Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) about his first year in Congress, Politico uncovered the revelation that Santos never hired staff to handle those seeking help in his district. While Santos had several communications staffers, D’Esposito said that his own office, and others in the area, had to step in to help Santos' constituents.
"A lot of the Santos stuff was self-inflicted. We really did attempt to just go about our business and conduct the work of the people who sent me to D.C. to deal with the things that mattered to them," said D’Esposito.
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When asked about the constituent services burden, D'Esposito explained: "It was really our staffs, those of us on Long Island, who dealt with the extra workload, whether it was people who did not want to communicate with Santos or elected officials who felt that they weren’t getting the answers that they needed."
He explained that he wanted to be out and about in his district more while back home, but the Santos problem prevented that.
"Instead of hearing about issues that we should be working on in the House, very often we were hearing about Santos and the situation that he was dealing with, especially me who had the district close to Santos and coming from the same county," he said.