A tale of two phone calls

I was listening to Maggie Thurber filling in for Brian Wilson on WSPD today and she read an email from a listener who called Sherrod Brown's office to give his opinion on the economic stimulus bill. He was told by the staffer that Brown is not entertaining phone calls about the stimulus bill because the President had explained the urgency of the bill to the Senator and Brown had pledged his support.

Meanwhile, this morning, my wife made a call to Marcy Kaptur's office. She asked what the Representative's stance on the stimulus bill was. The staffer who answered the phone told my wife that they were not authorized to release that information. Not authorized? She was a constituent asking for a stance on an issue, not the Taliban asking for the nuclear launch codes.

When, exactly, did these people decide that they work for Obama and not the people who elected them?