The first thing I noticed was small room appeared, much smaller than it looks on TV. There are high school auditoriums that hold more people than the Chamber of the House of representatives of the United States, even when it is in its more crowded, as if it were to speech of Tuesday's State of the Union.
I remember feeling the same way the first time I saw the Celtics in Boston Garden. Players who seem Giants on TV seemed small there on a basketball court regulation size.
Floor of the House was full of players Tuesday, but the House cannot accommodate as many spectators as the garden. The camera has a single desk selling, five lines deep on the sidelines, a little more in the end zones.
From where I sat, all looked small, even the President. With a basketball game, you can see more on TV-the facial expressions, the reactions from listeners-than in person. The sound was better on TV too.
Personally, the giants of national politics are all life-sized and that is a perspective very often lost. They are not only the source of daily talking points, defined by "D" or "R" following their names. They have individual interests, goals and jobs to do.
Closest I can tell, they have good intentions and patriotic ideals as well, whatever your party. Given the opportunity, even long-serving Congress Members can speak like Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington".
Before Tuesday's speech, I visited with three members of the delegation of the Assembly of Massachusetts. All have offices facing the Capitol with the much prized view of the dome.
Rep. Richard Neal, D-2, quoted one of his predecessors Bay State, John McCormack, who served as speaker of the House in the 1960s: "If you look at the rotunda of the Capitol to sunrise or sunset and you aren't moved, you have either been in Washington too long, or you should not have come here first."
Office of Neal in Rayburn building is large by home standards: three bedrooms and a reception area. One of the rooms is divided into stalls, but for the view and the old, resemble a workplace in a suburban Office Park mid-range.
Neal, my host in Tuesday's speech, is a member of the Committee of the House, & means that writes tax laws. He points to the cubicle, used by a tax lawyer in your team. "She could make half a million dollars in the private sector," he says, "but it works here because she wants to accomplish something."
House Democrats are now in the minority, but they still have work to do. Neal jousted Tuesday with Republican President of media & over efforts of Neal to add labor and environmental protection for a free trade agreement with Peru. He'll have a voice in the debate about corporate and individual tax reform.
Just below office of Neal, Rep. Ed Markey, D-7, is trying to revive his "grid reliability and infrastructure Defense Act," which aims to improve security against natural disasters and cyberattacks on the electrical system of the country. The scariest scenarios that li, an attacker with access to codes of law could beat a plant so completely that it could take six months to get the lights.
The House approved the Bill last June, but he died in the Senate. Thus the Markey climate legislation is signed. Markey likes to say that it has no problem working with House Republicans; is Senate Republicans who bring their best endeavours to pain.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-3, spends most its efforts with the Committee on the rules of procedure, which has power over each bill that moves through the House. Eventually he would, Chairman of that Committee, following in the footsteps of his mentor, the late Rep. Joe Moakley.
But this session, McGovern also took a seat on a Board where you won't find many New Englanders. The Agriculture Committee of the Chamber is a bastion of State farm, where midwesterners tend to follow the priorities of agribusiness.
McGovern has the continued interest in development and hunger around the globe and nutrition here at home. A couple of years ago McGovern put your family on a food stamp diet-21 dollars a week-and helped the shame of the Department of agriculture in raising the assignment. He wanted a seat on the Committee at this time, he told me, then he could push for food security, improved nutritional standards, reformed agricultural subsidies and an end to the supply of ethanol.
Therefore, it is in the offices of members of Congress from both sides of the Capitol. CNN-or Fox or MSNBC, depending on the Member-controls the big stories in the corner, the sound without sound. Senators, representatives and their staff can hold forth on any topic discussing the talking heads.
Meanwhile, they work on important things that rarely mention TV talking heads, such as food stamps, securing the power grid or the provisions of a Peruvian trade agreement.
They also work on less important things that are big business for folks back home: road improvements and federal grants and components, and companies are having with government bureaucracy. These things are not as glamorous as a State of the Union address, but they do most of the work and lawmakers take seriously.
People love to hate Government and love for to badmouth politicians. You know, that some politicians deserve--and they all are obliged to hear our muttering.
But they don't deserve the level of vitriol sometimes showered with them, just as one of his colleagues, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, didn't deserve a bullet in the head of a crazed component. Our national discourse would be healthier if more people would take time to see elected leaders not as clumsy Gladiators supporters, but as individuals life-sized.
Rick Holmes, opinion editor for the MetroWest Daily News, blogs, Holmes & co. he can be reached at rholmes@cnc.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment