Congress: The real idle masses
“I don’t know what they have to say, It makes no difference anyway.
Whatever it is, I’m against it.”
Groucho Marx, from the song, “I’m Against It”
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The 2013 U.S. Congress (the first year of the 113th Congress) is the least productive in the 66 years they’ve kept track of such things. How non-productive? I’m glad you asked.
Even during a year Harry Truman called the “Do Nothing Congress” (1947), he signed 395 bills into law. That’s a legislative tsunami compared to the 57 bills that reached President Obama’s desk during 2013.
No wonder according to recent Gallup polling, Congressional approval sank to 9 percent in November, only to “rebound” to an underwhelming 12 percent by year’s end. People don’t seem to like the U.S. Congress as much as they do head lice. Despite that hastily approved budget deal to wrap-up the year, the chasm between thoughtful governance, and mindless political posturing will likely continue to grow during calendar year 2014.
There’s a mid-term election coming. There’s bound to be far more happening on the stump than in the halls of Congress. In the meantime, I’ve done a little homework. It’s too easy finding votes split along party lines. Most votes are.
I searched for members of Congress who’ve voted against things just about everybody else voted for. I’m not even talking about the time in December of 2012, when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell actually blocked his own debt ceiling proposal, because he’d hoped it would fail — but the Democrats had enough votes to pass it. Opencongress.org keeps a repository of all Congressional votes and their dispositions. It’s quite revealing.
“No matter what it is or who commenced it, I’m against it,” Groucho Marx once sang. His words were an accurate prediction of the behavior of many Republicans and a few Democratic members during the 113th Congress.
On Oct. 28th, the U.S. House passed H.R. 2189 — “To establish a commission or task force to evaluate the backlog of disability claims of the Department of Veterans Affairs.” It passed 404-1.
The lone dissenting vote came from that Republican ex-governor of South Carolina, and admitted philanderer, Mark Sanford, who was elected to Congress in a special election. As it turned out, that piece of legislation was passed through the U.S. Senate by a unanimous consent. Obama signed it into law on Dec. 19, and Sanford was the only member of Congress who apparently thinks that helping U.S. veterans have their disability claims processed wasn’t worthy of his vote.
In September he was the lone vote against something called the “Powell Trace Parkway Land Conveyance Act.” That passed the House 408-1. It was signed into law on Sept. 10.
Those lone “no” votes took place in the Senate, too.
When James B. Comey was approved by the full Senate to become the head of the FBI, it was Republican malcontent Rand Paul who cast his “no” vote, when 93 senators voted yes. It was another Republican, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who voted no when California’s Derek Anthony West was nominated to be Associate U.S. Attorney General. It was Coburn one — the rest of the Senate 98.
For some reason that seems to escape any logic, some Republicans have a hard time when it comes to supporting the interests of the nation’s veterans.
On Dec. 10, the House voted overwhelmingly (345-1) in support of the “Department of Veterans Affairs Major Medical Facility Lease Authorization Act.” That bill will enable the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to exercise the authority to enter into leases for major VA facilities in 19 states.
As Groucho Marx would sing, “Your proposition may be good, but let’s have one thing understood, Whatever it is, I’m against it. And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it — I’m against it.”
Who’s the person who would vote against the wishes of 345 of his fellow members of Congress on a law that could help serve thousands of the nation’s veterans? Republican Jeff Duncan of South Carolina. Whatever it is, I suspect, he’s against it.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. Email him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net