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Holy crap, I did not expect this. Score one for the new congress, it is about time our politicians are expected to actually, you know... like, work.
Culture Shock on Capitol Hill: House to Work 5 Days a Week
By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 6, 2006; A01
Forget the minimum wage. Or outsourcing jobs overseas. The labor issue most on the minds of members of Congress yesterday was their own: They will have to work five days a week starting in January.
The horror.
Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrat who will become House majority leader and is writing the schedule for the next Congress, said members should expect longer hours than the brief week they have grown accustomed to.
"I have bad news for you," Hoyer told reporters. "Those trips you had planned in January, forget 'em. We will be working almost every day in January, starting with the 4th."
The reporters groaned. "I know, it's awful, isn't it?" Hoyer empathized.
For lawmakers, it is awful, compared with what they have come to expect. For much of this election year, the legislative week started late Tuesday and ended by Thursday afternoon -- and that was during the relatively few weeks the House wasn't in recess.
Next year, members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday, Hoyer said.
( IBIWISI )
With the new calendar, the Democrats are trying to project a businesslike image when they take control of Congress in January. House and Senate Democratic leaders have announced an ambitious agenda for their first 100 hours and say they are adamant about scoring legislative victories they can trumpet in the 2008 campaigns.
Hoyer and other Democratic leaders say they are trying to repair the image of Congress, which was so anemic this year it could not meet a basic duty: to approve spending bills that fund government. By the time the gavel comes down on the 109th Congress on Friday, members will have worked a total of 103 days. That's seven days fewer than the infamous "Do-Nothing Congress" of 1948.
Hoyer said members can bid farewell to extended holidays, the kind that awarded them six weekdays to relax around Memorial Day, when most Americans get a single day off. He didn't mention the month-long August recess, the two-week April recess or the weeks off in February, March and July.
He said members need to spend more time in the Capitol to pass laws and oversee federal agencies. "We are going to meet sufficient times, so the committees can do their jobs on behalf of the American people," he said.
For lawmakers within a reasonable commute of Washington, longer weeks are not a burden -- although they are likely to cut into members' fundraising and campaigning activities. But for members from Alaska and Hawaii, the West Coast, or rural states, the new schedule will mean less time at home and more stress.
"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."
( .... then don't run for office, you racist cracka )
Time away from Washington is just as important to being an effective member of Congress as time spent in the Capitol, Kingston added. "When I'm here, people call me Mr. Congressman. When I'm home, people call me 'Jack, you stupid SOB, why did you vote that way?' It keeps me grounded."
( install a toll-free number so they can call you in DC )
Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), who had intended to retire this year, only to be persuaded to run again, wondered whether the new schedule was more than symbolic. "If we're doing something truly productive, that's one thing," he said. "If it's smoke-and-mirrors hoopla, that's another."
Senate leaders have not set their schedule, but the upper chamber generally works a longer week than the House, though important votes or hearings are usually not scheduled on Mondays or Fridays.
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), one of the architects of the lighter workweek, put the best Republican face on Hoyer's new schedule.
"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."
The new schedule poses a headache for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who runs her 7-year-old daughter's Brownie troop meetings on Monday afternoons in Weston, Fla. "I'll have to talk to the other mothers and see if we can move it to the weekend," she said.
Setting a calendar that satisfies 435 members is impossible, said the current majority leader, Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who will become minority leader in January. "Between the travel issues, the members' work schedules, the family and district issues, it was a Rubik's cube," he said.
But most Democrats, some still giddy from their election victories, seemed game.
"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."
Staff writer Jonathan Weisman contributed to this report.
Holy crap, I did not expect this. Score one for the new congress, it is about time our politicians are expected to actually, you know... like, work.
Do you really want that?
Either that or pay them 3/5 of what they make now.
I'd just as soon we give them a raise and restrict their hours to 1/2 day a week. I can't believe you actually want these people in Washington making sausa...er, law.
I, however, can completely believe you want to give them more money. Neoconservative is a misnomer. It's more like unconservative or misconservative.
In conjunction with a reduction in hours? Absolutely. It would be the best investment this country ever made. We would save trillions.
Yeah, did you see the definition of their five day work week.
Be in Washington by 6:30 PM on Monday and work until 2PM on
Friday. That's five days? More typical dimm-o-crap. You really
think they will do anything on Mondays and Firdays. llllooooo
three days.
How much money did this work adversive, absentee 109th Congress save us?
What makes him a racist cracka, or do you just like talking out your honkey ass?
So if the existing group arrived on Tuesday and left on Thursday... that meant the 109th Congress was working... one day a week.
The article states there have been 103 workdays in the 100 or so weeks thus far of the 109th Congress. So if Tuesdays and Thursdays were do-nothing days... then they've logged a good 35 solid legislative days in two years.
I guess Rep. Kingston is really pissed the gravy train is coming to an end.
Attention Republicans... small government and negligent government are not the same thing. Sitting on your ass makes government bloated, inefficient, and unaccountable. Making it lean and efficient, and reducing its scope per authentic conservative ideology takes vigilance and um, I dont know, how about WORK?!
I have to give a special shout-out to Rep. Kingston. Hey, if you need to spend 60% of your waking hours at home with your family, try resigning from Congress.
Hey, I know, I think I'll take a really good-paying job that requires a bunch of travel, and then and moan when I have to travel. What a wanker.
If this flaming little wussy were culturally literate and read now and then, he'd probably get the vapors when he read how much time the Founding Fathers spent away from home establishing a new Nation.
And last but not least, it takes a special kind of sniveling little bag to whine about having to spend more than two nights a week away from home, when our soldiers overseas hardly have seen their families for a couple of years now.
Damn, ES regulates.
Another good move by the DEMOs...
Dec 7, 5:48 PM EST
Democrats Will Try to Block Pay Raise
By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent
APWASHINGTON (AP) -- Members of Congress are in line for a $3,300 pay raise effective Jan. 1 unless they block it, and Democrats said Thursday they intend to try.
Officials said Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California and Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the party's leaders, had notified Republicans they will try to add the anti-pay-raise provision to a bill that provides funds for most government agencies through Feb. 15.
Congress must pass the funding bill before it adjourns for the year, and the target for that is Friday.
Democrats won control of Congress in last month's elections after a campaign in which they frequently criticized majority Republicans for taking pay raises while blocking numerous attempts to raise the minimum wage.
"It is unconscionable that members of congress would get yet another pay raise while the minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour for the last 10 years. Senator Reid intends to do all he can to ensure that Congress won't get a raise until working families do," said his spokesman, Jim Manley.
Brilliant move by the Pelosi group.
While I think the five day work week thing is a joke because it will just make their time away a longer consecutive stretch, I do like the above from Dan. I've been ing to anyone that can listen about all the ing pay raises these bags give themselves while essentially solving nothing for the people they are supposed to represent.
While I am still unconvinced that this congress will be any more useful then any other one that I've been old enough to care about, I do like the move.
Granted, I have not been glued to CSPAN over the last 6 years that the Reps were the majority, but I'm fairly certain that the Dems have taken the same number of days off as the Reps, and there was not an outcry by those Dems that they were not working enough.
I cant begin to fathom how making our Congress work 5 days a week is a negative. I really dont. I dont care if they sit in meetings talking about what they ate last night, at least pretend to be doing something than openly admitting youre a lazy bas with nothing but personal interest in mind.
Amazing.
Come on people. Nothing the Dems propose or do will ever satisfy exray or yoni..
Hey ES, you know what I really think. They should meet like the Texas
Legs. Every two years and modify it so they can only stay two weeks
and pay them minimum wages for those two weeks and make them
sleep in a barracks. In short just long enough to pass a budget and
get the out of dodge. Make them hold a job and pay local taxes
like the rest of the slobs. I know, they would do just like our so
called citizens city council. Where there is a will there is a way.
I would also modify our Texas legs so that their retirement pay is not
based on the District Judges pay. Just on what they earn. Why do
you think States judges make so damn much in Texas.........yeah,
baby.
Oh, GGA, that's not true. Some things they do satisfy me. But damn if
I can remember her name. Wish I could.
I agree. My only caution was a reality check that the Reps AND Dems have been taking advantage of the easy work schedule for years. Can we wait a few months before we bestow sainthood on the new majority leaders?
You know, the more I think about this whole concept, the more it pisses me off. They will work five days a week, great. Republican, Democrat, Independant, whatever, the more they work the happier it makes me. But how about we hold these people to the same standards that the people they represent are held. How about they work five days a week, 52 weeks a year, and get two weeks vacation plus somewhere around 9-15 paid holiday days a year. , I'll even give them the 2 weeks sick time as well as the 1 week personal that most of us are allotted.
Let's see them actually put in one full year of work the way we all do and will do for much of our lives. Congress.
Marx was right, I'm getting pissed.
I grant no such status unto any person. Especially lawyers. Long lines in , etc.
There is a difference between lawyers and politicians? I didn't know that!
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