Oh No! Congress is in Session

Do you know what congress actually does while is in session. Read the article below by Robert Freer to find out.

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

“No Man’s life liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session”. Long attributed to Mark Twain and various other nationally prominent humorists, the quote is actually the invention of Judge Gideon Tucker, formerly of the New York legislature, and my source suggests it was soon appropriated by Mr. Clemens for his Twain persona. Whoever said it first, neither would have much to complain about if he used the number of days Congress is in session as a guide.

In 2004, The U.S. House of Representatives spent only 110 days in Session and the Senate 133. Much of that time was spent on essential annual housekeeping items and very little on new legislation. Of the 1,732 Bills introduced in the House and The 1,032 introduced in the Senate, only 306 became law. Much time is taken on the budget and appropriations for the government as well as keeping track of our ballooning national debt and need to periodically raise the debt ceiling. There is seldom time to take up more than a few other major items. “How can that be?” you say. “Let’s see, Congress comes in every January and almost never leaves until mid November…sometimes even December. That is at least 43 weeks or 215 legislative days if they don’t meet on weekends.” True, but in recent years Congress has adopted the policy of primarily only scheduling sessions on Tuesday through Thursday so the Members can rush home for extended weekends to maintain contact with their constituents directly. They are in constant electioneering mode and additionally the cost of living in Washington and maintaining two homes has become prohibitive. Increasingly the family stays at home and the Member commutes.

The three days that a Member spends in Washington are packed with activity. The Member faces Committee hearings, sessions of Congress, and the never-ending smorgasbord of fundraising events in the capital. Last year, not counting money spent in “independent expenditures”, Congressional and Senate candidates collectively raised 1.1 billion dollars. The typical House race cost $531,885 per major party candidate, and to secure a spot in the U.S. Senate, often referred to as “The Millionaires Club”, a candidate spent an average of $2,575,367. Once elected, the rank-and-file Member looks forward to a salary of $158,103 per year and a “Member Representational Allowance” of approximately 1 million dollars. We had some difficulty in getting a precise handle on this allowance. It seems that Members who are farther from Washington and who have been around longer get a bit more but data on this was elusive. The allowance supports 18 permanent employees and up to 4 part-time employees as well as office expenses. Members who have been around a while also may have patronage from a committee of which he/she is a senior member.

You would think with 730 million appropriated for congressional administration last year, they would keep their noses to the legislative grindstone. In fact in addition to the short legislative workweek, Congress has scheduled a number of “District Work Periods” throughout the year. 5 days in February, 15 days bridging spring vacations, 5 over Memorial Day, the 4th of July, and the entire month of August through Labor Day.

While every now and again when someone like me writes an article like this, the public gets stirred up for awhile, the fact is that in the context of the almost 11.6 trillion dollar gross domestic product and the vast sums we spend on foreign aid, the public soon quiets down, and it’s business as usual on the Hill. For better or worse, the inherent operations of the federal lawmakers vastly impact financial commerce, and they can’t run on a shoestring. I don’t begrudge reasonable expenditures for the work legislators do, but it does need reform. The amount of money and time that swirl around the elective process corrodes our confidence in the result. I am not for taking donations from the public out of the equation. Money and the ability of a Member to attract individual support are entitled to a role, but money in the huge sums required to get and stay elected inherently corrupts by diverting a Member’s focus away from constituent concerns and to feeding the campaign machine. A Member’s time is limited. He or she from necessity will spend time where he/she can raise the most money efficiently.

I fear the voice of the average constituent gets crowded out of this process. For those citizens who agree with Tucker and Twain, our modern legislature offers both relief and an enhanced fear. In one sense, they may relax because of the relatively few days the lawmakers spend actually making laws; on the other hand, they must remain warily vigilant because of the vast sums of money that taint the rest of a Member’s calendar. Absolute immediate disclosure of any contributions, free travel, or other form of support for a Member should be the rule, corporate campaign financing in any form should be discouraged, and there should be a limit of 15% of GDP for Congressional spending. Only then can we hope for legislative sanity and an electoral process that will leave more time for service of constituents and less time required for fundraising.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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