It's 2 PM. Do You Know Where Your Senators Are?
Washington, DC -- If it's past 2 p.m., then your senators are not working. At least, they aren't working on the things you pay them to do: voting on bills and holding hearings to find out about public-policy issues and problems. But it might not be their fault that they're AWOL from 2 p.m. on each day -- it depends on their party affiliation. The Republican leadership has decided to use yet another one of the Senate's arcane Polish Rules to shut down committee hearings two hours after the Senate convenes. Of course, they also won't let the Senate vote on anything, if they can possibly avoid it. So senators can't hold hearings, because they're too busy trying to vote. Yes, the Republicans actually object to voting on the public's business. As Senator John McCain put it, "We aren't going to cooperate for the rest of the year." What that means, of course, is that they aren't going to do their jobs -- or let the rest of the senators do their jobs, either. Earlier this week, I watched as a hearing being held by Senator Barbara Boxer on how to reduce our reliance on imported oil had to be rushed through -- dozens of other hearings are being similarly affected.
Maybe we ought to put the Senate on an hourly rate and pay senators only for time they actually spend doing the public's business. It would, admittedly, be only a small step toward paying down the federal deficit. But it might give the Republican leadership an incentive to get out of the way and let the Congress pass legislation that might, in fact, help with the deficit, and unemployment, and banking reform, and energy independence, and pollution, and climate. It's scandalous that the Republican leadership thinks they can get away with shutting down the U.S. government because they lost the last election. It's also fundamentally undemocratic.
Will we let them?
