Voice of People on Thomas Goes Unheard : Capitol: Overwhelmed Senate phones, holiday, absent lawmakers combine to thwart most with opinions on case.

People calling the Washington office of Sen. John B. Breaux (D-La.) on Monday concerning Judge Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court were greeted by a flat, disembodied voice cheerlessly informing them: “The mailbox belonging to John Breaux is full.” Callers following the instructions to talk to somebody else were disconnected.

The main Capitol switchboard, meanwhile, was closed, and direct lines into Senate offices were swamped. At some points during the day, just dialing 224, the telephone prefix for the Senate, was enough to trigger a recording saying the call could not be completed. And telegrams intended to express the voice of the people sat sealed in envelopes piled in front of locked doors in Senate office buildings.

Democracy and the age of instant communications both ran headlong into the Columbus Day holiday Monday, frustrating many of those who wanted to give their elected representatives their views of the three days of spellbinding testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on a day when there were no mail deliveries and the Senate office buildings were closed to the public.

For the most part, the senators themselves were not in Washington and were making their own attempts in their home states or on the road somewhere to sort out the diametrically opposed testimony of Thomas and Anita Faye Hill.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby (D-Ala.) left Washington on Monday afternoon for a short trip to Atlanta. He took a packet of information, including a 1988 federal district court decision that mentioned “Long Dong Silver,” and a summary of the telephone calls to his office to study on the trip.

Shelby also asked his staff to have the FBI report regarding Hill’s allegations against Thomas ready for him when he returns here this morning.

Sen. Wyche Fowler Jr. (D-Ga.), who, like Shelby, had announced his intention to vote for Thomas before the allegations of sexual harassment became public, was at home in Atlanta reviewing transcripts of the hearings faxed to him from Washington and watching the C-SPAN replay of the hearings and videotapes made by his office, according to aides.

His Georgia Democratic colleague, Sen. Sam Nunn, was in his Atlanta office studying a hearing transcript sent to him by computer and watching videotapes of the proceedings, aides said.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), who returned to Washington on Monday, said he would telephone Sen. John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), Thomas’s chief Senate sponsor, to “invite his advocacy” as he struggled with his decision.

Lieberman, a former state attorney general, said he would review a transcript Monday night and watch a videotape of Hill’s Friday testimony, of which he saw only parts.

Transcripts of the hearings and copies of the exhibits were available to all senators Monday from the Judiciary Committee, but there were few requests for them because so many senators were out of town, according to committee aides. Printed and bound versions of the record were to be delivered to all 100 Senate offices overnight.

Many offices on Monday maintained an official silence--and it wasn’t difficult. Behind the locked door of the office of Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), one of Thomas’s most ardent foes on the committee, a telephone rang plaintively. In front of it lay a thick batch of yellow Western Union envelopes.

At the office of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) was a box stuffed with telegrams. There, too, the door was locked.

Messages were getting to a few offices that were open with skeleton staffs. For these aides it was a day for answering incessantly ringing telephones.

In the Hart Building office of Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.), a Judiciary Committee member, two aides sat at telephones answering one call after another. One Kohl aide said the calls were breaking down this way: 20% for Thomas, 30% against him--and 50% against the committee and the Senate. Many of the calls appeared to have been orchestrated by a Milwaukee radio talk show host and by the “700 Club,” a television show produced by Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, according to Kohl aides.