Anti-war calls flood Reid office

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Thursday, Feb. 27, 2003 | 8:50 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A national peace movement group on Wednesday tied up phone lines on Capitol Hill, including in Nevada offices, with thousands of grass-roots activists flooding Senate offices with calls, faxes and e-mails, each voicing opposition to war with Iraq.

Many callers trying to reach the Washington office of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., got busy signals. Four exhausted Reid staffers fielded 3,000 calls by day's end, spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said. About 10 percent of the calls were from Nevada, she estimated. Typically two aides in Reid's office answer about 250 calls a day.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., got just 313 calls, spokesman Jack Finn said. The group MoveOn.org's "Win Without War" campaign targeted Senate offices in what organizers hailed as a successful "virtual march" on Washington.

Most House offices got only a few calls. Two Nevada constituents called Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., to voice an anti-war message, and two people called and yelled "No war!"