September 20, 2006

September 20, 2006

Our campground is very tourist friendly. There is a bus stop within the park. We hop on a bus that takes us to the Washington DC Metro system. Washington’s subway is gorgeous, the best our tax money can buy. We take the green line downtown to the Mall. We walk a few blocks to the Capitol and get a 12:30 tour ticket. It is only 10:30 so we walk to the Air and Space Museum. We browse very quickly through the 'Early Flight' section. The Smithsonian has lots of significant artifacts but we either don’t think the displays are very good or we have museum overload. We have lunch in their cafeteria and then head back to the Capitol building.

At the Capitol, we are first given a tour of the Rotunda under the main dome. It is very pretty. The tour guide spends a lot of time describing the paintings decorating the room. We then move to the original House chambers. The room is now a statue gallery. Apparently each state is allowed two statues in the building and 38 of them are stored here. We are then taken to a basement room where they have a small museum about the capitol building. We are told that to see the Senate or House chambers we need to go to one of the many Congressional office buildings and get tickets from our senators/representatives.

We figure why not so we head across the street to the Sam Rayburn building and hope we recognize one of the names. Once thru security, we find Henry Hyde’s name and head upstairs to his office. There we get both Senate and House tickets from the receptionist. Henry was too busy to see us as he was giving a speech at that moment in the House. We head back across the street and thru multiple security screenings to the viewing gallery of the House. By this time, Henry is long gone and shockingly so are most of the other Reps. Of the 435 Representatives in the House, less than 20 are in their seats. Despite the lack of an audience, the representatives there are energetically giving one-minute speeches on the merits of some law apparently requiring photo ID’s to vote. I think Henry just introduced the bill. The Republicans present arguments that this will reduce voter fraud and improve trust in election outcomes. All the Democrats say that is unconstitutional, infringes on voting rights, and is a Republican plot to reduce Democratic votes. One Pennsylvania Republican at the end voices some concerns about his Lancaster Amish community having religious objections to having their picture taken. (They didn’t seem too concerned about my taking their picture last week.) After watching for perhaps a half hour, I notice a trend. The Representatives come in, wait for their turn, give their talk and then saunter out. They don’t stay to hear the debate, only to hear themselves talk. Aimee and I both get disgusted with our government.

We get up, head downstairs and work our way to the Senate gallery. We laugh as soon we as we sit down. There is one lone Senator from Alabama (Jeff Sessions) giving some very long speech on some bill about either border security or presidential powers. Since there is absolutely no audience, this speech is for television. Just before Sessions finishes, in walks Senator Boxer from California. She starts her speech and he leaves. She immediately starts railing about Bush and Iraq and then moves into other subjects including complaining about how little the government does for cancer research or for the growing labor shortage in fresh vegetable picking. (How can California have a labor shortage and a high unemployment rate?) By this time Aimee and I are snickering about everything she is saying, especially a remark about listening to Senator Session’s speech.

When we entered the Senate gallery we were given a nice brochure on the 2006 Senate. Apparently we weren’t the only ones to question the attendance of the Senators. The brochure answers that the Senators spend most of their time on committees. I review the list of 24 committees and among others they include Indian Affairs, veteran affairs, ethics, library, printing, small business, aging, and rules. Now I know why they don’t have time to make it to the Senate floor. I wish we hadn’t gone to the viewing gallery. It burst my bubble about our government. We head back to our camp for a beer.