It truly does not seem to matter whether our so-called Congress is in session or on what it calls a “recess,” because by its own admission it applies itself very diligently to doing absolutely nothing of consequence no matter what time of year it is. It is public knowledge that it has left undone a truly mammoth amount of business in the course of its most recent get-together. Yes, it is quite correct to say that House and Senate members must meet with their constituents. It is also sadly necessary for them to raise gobs of cash in their home districts. Even so, the nation’s legislative body manages to accomplish only a micro-miniscule amount of the deliberation and law-making that it potentially could.

Our Congress, sadly, is both less productive and far more addicted to petty procedural nonsense than the UK’s Parliament. One would have to go back to Britain’s pre-Reform Bill of 1832 Parliaments to find trans-Atlantic legislative dysfunctionalism that is as bad as what is displayed in our contemporary House and Senate. It is a disgrace for our Representatives and Senators to go on their so-called “summer recess” without really having done more than a pittance of what the general public has a right to expect. While it would be inhuman to lock our “bipartisan battalions of burgesses” in a room until they truly and finally perform the public’s business (or would it?), and actually do what a legislative chamber is supposed to do, it is plain that America is very ill-served by its current bunch of Congresspersons.

They can do much better than at present.

Frank Goheen, Camas