Congress caves; jazz jettisoned, patriotic tunes return to House

The House switched its on-hold telephone music back to patriot tunes Tuesday after a three-week experiment with smooth jazz and elevator music was judged to be offensive.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) was so outraged that his constituents were subjected to more anodyne jazz selections that he wrote a letter to the office that oversees the music selection asking for the situation to be reversed.

“Callers routinely express their delight in listening to a few notes of Americana while briefly waiting for their call to go through,” Upton wrote in a letter to Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Dan Beard on Friday. “We should proudly embrace our nation’s patriotic songs, not callously shun them for elevator music.”

The shift away from the more traditional music was part of a pilot program that was canceled at 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday, in which offices had the option to choose smooth jazz or no music for callers placed on hold.

“The staff in charge of the telecommunications division of the CAO would hear from lawmakers’ staff that they were interested in having different types of music on the hold system,” said Jeff Ventura, spokesman for the CAO’s office, adding that House Leadership did not take part in the decision to switch the tunes.

“It was a very earnest pilot program just to see what that’s like. But it’s one of those things where if it’s not broke, don’t fix it, so if everyone’s happy with the original music, then that’s what we’re going to go with.”

With the healthcare debate taking center stage during this summer’s recess, members received an overwhelming volume of correspondence from constituents and lobbying groups, at one point even clogging a form-based e-mail system for Web visitors nearly to a standstill.

“Certainly we would prefer not to put those who contact our office on hold; however with the high volume of calls we receive it is sometimes necessary,” wrote Upton in the letter.

The Michigan congressman’s hold music was back to normal as of Tuesday afternoon, playing a flute-version of “America the Beautiful.”

Ventura said the CAO’s office was not opposed to trying to figure out a way to offer another selection of music in addition to the patriotic tunes or the silent option, but that it would take official member requests to get that ball rolling.

“I think we’d only do that if we heard from various members that they wanted that selection, and we’ve heard that anecdotally, but we haven’t heard that formally,” Ventura said.

“So probably not unless someone comes and says there’s something that needs to be done here. There’s something to be said for the uniformity.”