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Last week, members of the House gathered in Washington to cast their votes on the stopgap coronavirus relief funding bill. That move put them, their staff, the airline and airport employees with whom they interacted, and their families at greater risk of contracting the deadly coronavirus — all because Congress doesn’t have remote voting. The House was reportedly also supposed to decide whether to allow proxy voting, but following Republican objections, members decided to create a committee to study the problem instead. At the moment, there’s a cloud of uncertainty hanging over when or how Congress will vote next: plans to return to Washington next week were scuttled by House leadership, under the advice of the House physician.
Yes. Yes, they should LEAD. It has been proven in several states that it is workable, safe and secure. However, the fight won’t be against this…it will be political and the fact that people who vote by mail are overwhelmingly realists which are not the ones that vote Republican.
Dem leadership needs to figure out how to be more visible. Mostly for the health and safety of the country since someone needs to provide real leadership, but also for their political benefit. This would get a lot of attention, especially right out of the gate. An opportunity to show what Dem leadership is capable of.
If I recall correctly, the Congress can ( and I think already has) made money available to the States for this, but not all States will use it for this purpose - think, as always, about blue v. red.
Blue States will gladly do it because they’ve seen the facts that it works - to wit, Washington State and the entire of the military since the Civil War.
Red States want nothing to do with it, because they lose their perceived control over the situation and SOCIALISM!!! VOTER FRAUD!!! blah, blah, blah.
It’s fine by me. The fewer Red State voters I have to deal with, the more I like it.
Yes, however, it’s #ditchMoscowMitch that’s making this a case. Duckworth was on Daily Social Distancing show the night before last and spoke on this very issue. They’ve been fine voting on bills from home, but Mitch wants everyone in house to push through unqualified candidates for judgeships and those are HER words, not mine.
Both sides like to play the game of who’s-not-in-town to game legislation. The last stimulus bill got a lot more liberal (not nearly enough) because it kept failing in votes because more republicans were out than dems.
Allowing remote voting on legislation would take that toy away from everyone.
Great! Vote for the guy you don’t know and have never seen. Makes perfect sense in this trump universe.
Gimme the old one back. You know, the one we had before trump came to DC and broke everything and stole whatever had value
You hear from some of these folks it’s not safe,we will be to close to one another etc,etc,etc.
Tell that to the workers forced to go back to work at the meat plants.
Chris Coons called out McConnell for the same thing yesterday. Coons wanted to know what they were coming back to Washington for anyway since the only thing on the schedule was a slam dunk confirmation hearing and a McConnell crony for judge of some sort.
This could also lead to a REDUCTION in pay and per diems for all congresscritters. No second homes in DC. No lobbyists flooding their offices. No travel expenses. I like the idea.
OK. Sorry. I thought this was something HARD. Millions of tech workers do this daily. Why is this so difficult for THEM? They are always telling us how smart they are…
Because neither side really wants to. Both sides have taken advantage of someone not being in town to vote in order to win votes they would otherwise have lost.
Setting aside snark about the way congress works, the voting part is pretty easy. What’s difficult for reps/senators who actually want to do a good job is all of the work to prepare for a vote - committee meetings, hearings that have to be coordinated with non congressional participants, research by their staff, etc. EG, Gohmert’s job is easy - no research, just straight for the vote that will hurt the most people he doesn’t care about. Schiff’s job is a lot tougher from his home office.
