This diary isn't so much about the fact that both the House and the Senate have new leaders and an agenda that will have them working five days a week, most weeks--unlike the last Republican session which met an average of two banking business days a week. Instead, I thought it would be enlightening to see some of the Republican congressional responses to the new work-week. Let me tell ya', if you need anything to bolster your sense that you made the right choice November 7th in kicking a large number of Republicans down the stairs, some of these quotes should do it.
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Here's what one Republican congressman had to say: "Keeping us up here eats away at families," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. "Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families -- that's what this says."
Could you write satire better than that? Republicans: a new variety of insoluble fiber. If you ever needed anything in your diet to help slow digestion and allow for proper absorption of nutrients, it's these wonderful moments where a Republican says something so profoundly ironic that it takes three reads just to make sure you aren't hearing a tongue being pressed against a cheek by the speaker. Here's a fellow who I would bet has voted against Family Leave, against raising the minimum wage, for a bankruptcy reform that solely benefits corporations while destroying medically-distressed families, arguing that Democrats "could care less about families" because his 165,000 dollar a year job now demands that he work at least five days a week, pretty much like the rest of us. Uhmmm......uhm!!!!! Nothing says "prima donna" quite like listening to a Republican congressperson complain about a longer work-week.
The we have this: "They've got a lot more freshmen then we do," he said of the Democrats. "That schedule will make it incredibly difficult for those freshmen to establish themselves in their districts. So we're all for it." That's courtesy of Roy Blunt. Isn't this the guy who had to take the second job dispensing gravy on the house floor because he couldn't survive on his two-day-a-week gig? So just to recap, Roy Blunt, the FREAKIN' HOUSE MAJORITY WHIP from this past congress, likes the idea of working more days, not because it allows congress the opportunity to do real work, but because politically, there might be a way to twist it for partisan purposes. Well done, Roy. That's the sort of thing teams put on their locker-room walls to remember you by when they're de-cleating you while accitentionally chop-blocking you.
Contrast this with something said by one of our own: "It's long overdue," said Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), who lives in Napa Valley and will have to leave his home at 3 a.m. on Sundays to catch a flight to Washington in time for work Mondays. "I didn't come here to turn around and go back home."
Imagine that: "I didn't come here to turn around and go back home." This is radical new language for a previously Republican-controlled House. Let's keep this in mind when we go to the polls in 2008. Many Republican congresspersons are being cheated out of quality time with their families by an onerous work schedule. Let's help them spend more time in their home districts by finding them jobs outside of Washington.