Study: 27% of lawmakers’ communication is taunting one another
April 7th, 2011 | Congress | Posted by Stephen Losey
On the bright side, it's been nearly 155 years since the last senator was savagely beaten with a cane on the Senate floor.
Ever suspected our lawmakers are, deep down, a bunch of children out to push each others’ buttons? Here’s the proof. The Washington Post reports that a Harvard professor found 27 percent of the time, members of “the world’s greatest deliberative body” are just taunting one another.
It sounds like an Onion headline, but it’s true. Professor Gary King analyzed 64,000 press releases from senators, and though he expected to find some chops-busting, the sheer amount was “jarring and surprising.” As he told the Post:
The entire federal government may go bankrupt, I guess. This week, right? We probably want our representatives to be listening to each other rather than calling each other names.
(And it’s worth noting that the Senate is seen as the more civil chamber of Congress. Who knows what Prof. King would find in the House.)
So if you’re furloughed next week and wondering why our esteemed statesmen can’t even pass a simple budget, now you know why.
Tags: government shutdown
Comments
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Art of RetroCollage Says:
April 18th, 2011 at 1:00 pmIt is too bad that so much time and energy is wasted on essentially playground tactics. However, Iother legislatures around the world, including Parliament, are not much better.