Wednesday, December 06, 2006

The Poor Dears...

House to Work 5 Days a Week, Republicans Disgruntled - washingtonpost.com:

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.

***
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."

The poor dears. Gotta love 'em.

Maybe I can go into court on Monday and tell the judge, "sorry, your Honor, but this Monday through Friday thing is putting a real strain on the family. You believe in family, don't you? See you at 3:00 tomorrow afternoon. Oh, and I'm taking Friday off. You know, family."

Well, I'd most likely get more writing done....

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gotta say, I kinda prefer the shorter work week; it's fewer hours for them to get up to mischief. On the other hand, we are paying them to actually be there.....

;-)

Julia said...

Working 5 days a week? You don't have enough time for your family because of your job?

Welcome to the world of your constituents.

JD Rhoades said...

Julia: Exactly. Take this quote: 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.

Because, see, that's what the rest of us have to do when our jobs get scheduled at an inconvenient time. We have to work around it.

Anonymous said...

As I recall, the idea is that when Congress isn't in Washington, they're still supposed to be working. You mean this whole time they've been going back to their home offices and running Brownie troop meetings instead of holding local meetings with constituents?

Anonymous said...

I just want someone to give me heaps of money for doing absolutely nothing. Maybe I should consider politics.