President Barack Obama's healthcare reform plan has slowed a congressional website to a near grinding halt. As voters from around the U.S. continued to flood members with e-mail about the proposed legislation, the internet system serving the House of Representatives remained extremely sluggish.

Technical support warned congressional staff that the www.house.gov website might be slow or unresponsive due to the large volume of emails being sent to members. A spokesman for the House's chief administrative officer, which maintains the website, said "It is clearly healthcare reform. There's no doubt about it."

A representative for Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) said that traffic to the site related to health care had exploded in recent weeks, and that Barton's office had received 2,761 individual emails on the subject in the 5 weeks since the debate began. In the weeks prior, the office received just 368 emails on the subject.