MONDAY, MAY 14, 2018
How About A “Virtual Congress?”

With President Trump calling for Congress to stay in session during their August recess to do their jobs, and Georgia GOP Senator David Perdue’s “Make Congress Work Again” initiative to work on nights and weekends to get things done, Conservative Partnership reporting how the Senate only works 2 ½ days a week any way, and the Council for National Policy calling for canceling the August recess altogether, Graduate Students at this afternoon’s Conservative Agenda Political Planning Seminar were asking Beloved Whistleblower Publisher Charles Foster Kane whatever happened to Congressman Steve Pearce’s proposed resolution that would let lawmakers work the way millions of others do: remotely.

The Washington Examiner said after more than a decade in the House, Pearce thinks he knows why people are so unhappy with Congress. Once elected, lawmakers become creatures of Washington and lose touch with the people who sent them there.

To fix it, the New Mexico Republican  proposed H. Res. 298 which encourages the House Administration Committee to explore ways to let members work in a “virtual setting.” That would include letting members debate, vote, and even attend hearings while they’re home.

“If you were facing your constituents rather than the lobbyists, there would be a great accountability that would change the pulse of this place within hours,” Pearce said.

“There’s no reason not to do it. The technology exists, and is already being used in the private sector. All kinds of corporate boards meet like this already, and it saves time, saves energy,” said Pearce, who logs several hours each week commuting to and from New Mexico.

But convenience is just part of it. The biggest change, Pearce said, would be a stronger connection to real people, and a more distant relationship with lobbyists. “The lobbyists should have to work harder to see us, and our constituents should have to work easier,” he said. “We’ve got it upside down.” (MORE)

Granite GROK also thinks a Virtual Congress would be just what America needs, since Trump has also mentioned another great idea that has been bandied about for years – moving the HQs of many of the departments to out-of-the way places throughout the nation – especially putting them into out of the way places. This would add to the decentralization of what seems to be “The Capital from the Hunger Games” – a place in and of itself, that operates far differently in governing (rule?) that what We the People have in our home towns.  There is a great divide – that needs to close. (MORE)

Could his plan ever take off in the House? Pearce thinks House leaders of either party will avoid it like the plague. “Although this is such a great idea, it sounds like something New Gingrich might have even suggested. But you won’t see a Virtual Congress any time soon,” Kane explained, because neither did the same resolution accomplish anything all those other times Pearce proposed it. The Blower will try to find out what happened after Pearce’s resolution has been referred to the so-called Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice.