It looks like Rep. Cartwright, or whoever it is on his stuff that runs his twitter account, forgot the first rule of the internet: don’t feed the trolls.

The whole brouhaha came about because Congressman Matt Cartwright (D-Lackawanna) voted against HJ Res. 72. The bill would have restored veteran’s benefits during the government shutdown.

Congressional Democrats have opposed GOP efforts to pass bills aimed at ending the worst aspects of the shutdown because they view that as a way for Republicans to keep the shutdown going without paying a political price.

The motion to suspend the rules and pass the resolution needed a two-thirds majority, or 290 votes, and only received 264. All Republicans and 33 Democrats voted for the bill while 164 Democrats voted against it, including Rep. Cartwright.

That’s when Leo Knepper, the Executive Director of the conservative advocacy group Citizens Alliance for Pennsylvania, asked “@RepCartwright why did vote against funding for our veterans?”. Knepper included a link to a website asking people to tweet the Congressmen who had voted against the bill.

@leoknepper Hey troll, last night’s vote was a $6.2B cut to the Veterans Appropriations bill that passed the earlier this yr #GOPshutdown

— Matt Cartwright (@RepCartwright) October 2, 2013

“Hey troll, last night’s vote was a $6.2B cut to the Veterans Appropriations bill that passed the earlier this yr,” Congressman Cartwright responded.

Cartwright sent an identical response to everyone who tweeted from that website afterwards. Websites monitoring Twitter soon picked up the exchanges and Cartwright even got a scolding from well known conservative pundit Michelle Malkin.

Urban Dictionary defines a troll as, “One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.”

Knepper, who lives in Schuylkill County in Cartwright’s 17th district, flatly rejected the premise that he was trolling Rep. Cartwright.

“It was me acting in my capacity as a constituent asking my representative about a vote,” he said. “If he doesn’t want to answer to his votes, he shouldn’t be in office.”

It’s not the first time Cartwright’s twitter feed has gotten personal.

Last Monday, Cartwright called House Majority Leader Eric Cantor a hypocrite for accusing Democrats of not showing up for work when he decides the schedule.

And on Monday, 16 hours before the shutdown deadline, Cartwright’s twitter engaged in a lengthy argument with another constituent.

“you got to work on your facts. And you don’t throw a temper tantrum just to get your own way,” he told Charles Indelicato of Monroe County.

A spokesman said that staff and interns are responsible for tweets from Rep. Cartwright’s account.

PoliticsPA asked whether Cartwright, the freshman who replaced Rep. Tim Holden (D-Schuylkill), stands by the remarks. PoliticsPA will update the story with a response.

Keegan Gibson contributed to this report.