Encouragement on social media to call or write elected officials about various issues has caused their offices to be overwhelmed. U.S. Senator John Cornyn of Texas says public input on cabinet nominees has crashed web sites and voice mail systems.

Senator John Cornyn, who represents 28 million Texans, says he’s been inundated with comments about the nomination of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary is a case in point.

“And you can imagine the volume of phone calls and mail and social media contacts that we get on a daily basis. And there’s no doubt that there was a concerted campaign by the establishment to try to sink Ms. DeVos’ nomination.”

The offices of Senator Ted Cruz and many other elected officials have also seen a deluge of public input. Senator Cornyn blames organized efforts for tying up Senate offices with a deluge of phone calls and emails.

“Notwithstanding our best efforts, we weren’t able to respond to all of them. They effectively crashed our voice mail system and threatened to bring down our web site and the like. But I think that this is part of the angry response to the fact that President Trump won.”

Vice President Mike Pence cast a historic tie-breaking vote Tuesday to confirm DeVos after the Senate was evenly divided. It was the seventh cabinet confirmation. Senator Cornyn says at this time eight years ago there were already 21 confirmations.

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