E-mails from public overload House Web site

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid a boisterous debate on health-care reform, people flooded members of Congress on Thursday with so many e-mails that they overloaded the House’s primary Web site.

Technical support issued a warning to congressional staff that the site, www.house.gov, may be slow or unresponsive because of the large volume of e-mail being sent to members.

Jeff Ventura, a spokesman for the House’s chief administrative officer, which maintains the Web site, said traffic data was not available and could not be released without the lawmakers’ consent.

“It is clearly health-care reform,” Ventura said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

Lawmakers are in their home districts for the August recess, where a populist backlash has emerged in some quarters against President Barack Obama’s plan to overhaul the nation’s health-care system.

A spokesman for Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, said e-mail traffic related to health care has exploded in recent weeks.