FRESNO, CA — Rep. Douglas Farwell, 61, (R-OH) confirmed Tuesday that he has spent the last seventeen months responding personally to the constituent complaints, birthday card requests, and zoning grievances of a retired schoolteacher in Fresno, California, a city located entirely outside his district, his state, and his jurisdiction.

The correspondence, intended for Rep. Carla Nguyen of California’s 22nd Congressional District, was rerouted to Farwell’s Columbus office in November 2024 following what a spokesman described as “a mail-sorting configuration issue that no one in the building has been able to fully explain.” Farwell, unaware the letters were misaddressed, answered each one within five business days, secured a flag flown over the Capitol for constituent Dorothy Maas’s 80th birthday, and personally called the Fresno city planning office twice about a disputed fence permit.

“Mrs. Maas seemed very pleased with the flag,” Farwell said in a prepared statement. “I do not know who she is, and I have no legal authority to do anything for her, but I feel the fence permit situation was genuinely mishandled and I stand by my calls.”

“I have never been this responsive to anyone in my own district. I’m not sure what to do with that information.”

Dorothy Maas, 80, said she had assumed her congressman had simply gotten more attentive. “I thought the new election cycle really lit a fire under him,” she said. “I had no idea he was from Ohio. He seemed very informed about the fence.”

Rep. Nguyen’s office said it had not received any constituent mail since November 2024 and had attributed the quiet to “a particularly satisfied district.”

At press time, Farwell had formally introduced legislation to fix Fresno’s fence permitting process, which he described as his signature infrastructure priority heading into the midterms.