Law would allow Congress to vote without being in D.C.
By Bryan Steele, California News Service
WASHINGTON — Since he began his new job in January, Rep. Eric Swalwell, a freshman lawmaker from Pleasanton, has commuted roughly 250,000 miles from California to Washington.
That’s equivalent to flying around the planet 10 times. And for California representatives, the commute is not unusual.
Rep. David Valadao, R-Fresno, didn’t mind the three-hour drive from Fresno to Sacramento when he served in the state assembly. But add another six hour flight across country and the commute begins to take a serious toll. Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, calls the repeated trips the hardest part of his job.
The long commute inspired Swalwell to introduce a measure that would let members vote remotely on non-controversial bills.
Under the provisions of HR287, which Swalwell introduced in late June, representatives would be able to vote via secure computers on the road or while at home, on issues with low priority. They would also be able to use video conferencing to participate in committee hearings.
I think the proposal is great. Potential cost saver too.
Here’s a parallel suggestion. The seat of the federal government was established in 1790 when there were only 13 States. Today this area does not represent the geography of the United States and territories.
I say relocate the headquarters to a central location. Leave DC as a historic area which has outlived it’s time.
How about Kansas? Would they reject the idea?
to move the capitol to the middle of the country would be extremely costly as all of the federal agencies are located there and it would make it a nightmare to hold meetings with congress for these agencies.
reloman— corporate headquarters are moved quite often.
If you’ve ever spent any time in DC you know how unrealistic the view is from there. One of my favorite cartoons from the Washington Post showed the “beltway offramp signs” with an arrow going to the outside of the beltway as the “real world”.
We’ve built an infrastructure there which fuels and feeds on itself.
The elements of our government need to better serve the people, not themselves and by being centrally located more people would have easier access.
How many of our children ever walked the halls of the Smithsonian? How many have visited the memorials? Everything is built in DC where few people from the West of the US can afford to visit.
It was a good location in 1790. It’s not so good today.
That’s ok there very seldom in DC anyway and when they are they never get anything done so what the heck !
For Example: He wouldn’t have had to fly to DC to vote to defund Obamacare 36 of the 37 times this Congress did last session.