In 2010 a small number of congressmen and senators were "Freshmen" in that it was their first term serving in their respective houses of congress.
Mostly, these were elected on the basis of fiscal responsibility (conservatism) whichever party they belonged to.
It has been argued they have too much influence, as well as that they cannot get much done because they are a small minority. Mind you it has been argued in extremest of these by the same people.
The numbers game in congress needs to stop. The numbers that matter are the constituents who voted members in office, who are supposed to be represented.
It is long past time to get rid of the career politicians in Washington (DC) who make millions on side deals, stock tips whether "insider trading" or not, and flat out unchecked corruption. These fight for their personal power, what spotlight they can bring to themselves and to their state if it helps for to that end.
Those who say that the Freshmen numbers are too small and their ideals are too rigid need to be swept out so that those with moral fiber and honor can work together to get done what is easily agreed upon and negotiate the rest. What we have now is all-or-nothing thinking where many (mostly Democrat party senators at the moment) are content to let nothing be done, have they passed the required budget since Obama was elected? Any budget? That is part of the LEGAL definition of their job description after all. The Senate majority leader will not even put things up for a vote to show that the party has any standing on anything.
Perhaps it is best that the turnover is not too abrupt so that there is time to regroup around the representation the founders intended. But not so slowly that the incoming Freshmen are doomed to concede the old ways and continue in them.
So here's hoping for a LOT more Freshmen in congress come November's election, and more retirements and more honor to actually represent the constituency.
The republic has gone awry. It is time to correct course.
Showing posts with label house of representatives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house of representatives. Show all posts
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Saturday, April 4, 2009
How to Track a Vote in the House of Representatives
I know this is quite a convoluted process, which is why it has to be explained in the first place.
Note that this information is subject to change, the website look an navigation can and will likely change. The terminology could change (not that they would make it more difficult to find information, right?).
In the past I have seen House votes listed in a meaningful way, like the Senate's votes (which I will cover in a later post), by state is the most useful as people might not know the name of their representative or their name could be similar to another representative.
Here goes:
To get the proper info "from the horse's mouth" so to speak, start at
http://www.house.gov
Along the left side is a menu list. Under the "Resources" find "Clerk of the House."
Click on that and it takes you to http://clerk.house.gov .
On the navigation bar across the top of this page:
About the Clerk's Office
Member Information
Committee Information
Legislative Activities
Art & History
Public Disclosure
House Library
Hover over Legislative Activities, and the frame underneath changes accordingly.
Under Legislative Activities should be:
House Floor Proceedings
Congressional Schedule
Roll Call Votes
House Documents
Click on Roll Call Votes.
That should take you to a page called "Legislation & Votes."
On the right side of the split layout is "Roll Call Votes." Under this, click the current Congress which right now is
111th Congress, 1st Session (2009)
That will take you to an index, currently http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/index.asp with the most recent votes up to 99 or 100 per page.
The table contains the following items:
Roll Call Vote Number
Date
Issue (e.g. resolution name and number)
Result (P = Passed, F = Failed, A = Agreed-to)
Title/Description
These are labeled on the table.
For results prior to the most recent items, there are links at the bottom for each grouping, e.g. 1-99, 100-199 (to date it is only up to 192). Click on the link and you get a table of those entries.
Then to navigate, use Back because those pages do not have links back or to other pages.
Now, for example we want to look at the vote on House Resolution 1 (first resolution for the 111th Congress).
Click on Roll Calls 1 Thru 99 [sic]
Now scroll down to at least Roll 70 which was 13-Feb and you will see H R 1 underlined as a link. Note that the vote # is also a link to the tally (which is currently a table of names, first and last separate and state listed in parentheses with last name, i.e. a mess).
Click on H R 1 and you get the THOMAS Library of Congress listing with a descriptive title and links to all kinds of good information about the resolution.
Clicking on "Major Congressional Actions" will take you to a timeline of actions in Congress.
For this particular item, you can see the House and Senate vote totals for each time it was brought to a vote. If you click on Roll no. ### you will get the jumbled table mentioned from the Roll # link above.
The Senate vote tallies are also listed along with a link to their vote (Record Vote Number: ### which can also be found starting from the senate homepage). Note how these tallies are actually useful in multiple ways.
The final Txt or PDF is currently not available, but if you go back to the H R 1 info page you can click on Text of Legislation which brings you to an index of all forms and the last is the most recent (though no dates appear on the index). For this one you can see #8 is listed as passed by both House and Senate).
The link takes you to yet another outline of links for the text, but there is also a Printer Friendly Display link which is more of a document form but I wonder if it is the entire text.
Warning: looking through the index table can be nauseating, especially looking at some of the items time is wasted on when they don't bother to read or even give time to read $X trillion spending bills before passing them.
Note that this information is subject to change, the website look an navigation can and will likely change. The terminology could change (not that they would make it more difficult to find information, right?).
In the past I have seen House votes listed in a meaningful way, like the Senate's votes (which I will cover in a later post), by state is the most useful as people might not know the name of their representative or their name could be similar to another representative.
Here goes:
To get the proper info "from the horse's mouth" so to speak, start at
http://www.house.gov
Along the left side is a menu list. Under the "Resources" find "Clerk of the House."
Click on that and it takes you to http://clerk.house.gov .
On the navigation bar across the top of this page:
About the Clerk's Office
Member Information
Committee Information
Legislative Activities
Art & History
Public Disclosure
House Library
Hover over Legislative Activities, and the frame underneath changes accordingly.
Under Legislative Activities should be:
House Floor Proceedings
Congressional Schedule
Roll Call Votes
House Documents
Click on Roll Call Votes.
That should take you to a page called "Legislation & Votes."
On the right side of the split layout is "Roll Call Votes." Under this, click the current Congress which right now is
111th Congress, 1st Session (2009)
That will take you to an index, currently http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/index.asp with the most recent votes up to 99 or 100 per page.
The table contains the following items:
Roll Call Vote Number
Date
Issue (e.g. resolution name and number)
Result (P = Passed, F = Failed, A = Agreed-to)
Title/Description
These are labeled on the table.
For results prior to the most recent items, there are links at the bottom for each grouping, e.g. 1-99, 100-199 (to date it is only up to 192). Click on the link and you get a table of those entries.
Then to navigate, use Back because those pages do not have links back or to other pages.
Now, for example we want to look at the vote on House Resolution 1 (first resolution for the 111th Congress).
Click on Roll Calls 1 Thru 99 [sic]
Now scroll down to at least Roll 70 which was 13-Feb and you will see H R 1 underlined as a link. Note that the vote # is also a link to the tally (which is currently a table of names, first and last separate and state listed in parentheses with last name, i.e. a mess).
Click on H R 1 and you get the THOMAS Library of Congress listing with a descriptive title and links to all kinds of good information about the resolution.
Clicking on "Major Congressional Actions" will take you to a timeline of actions in Congress.
For this particular item, you can see the House and Senate vote totals for each time it was brought to a vote. If you click on Roll no. ### you will get the jumbled table mentioned from the Roll # link above.
The Senate vote tallies are also listed along with a link to their vote (Record Vote Number: ### which can also be found starting from the senate homepage). Note how these tallies are actually useful in multiple ways.
The final Txt or PDF is currently not available, but if you go back to the H R 1 info page you can click on Text of Legislation which brings you to an index of all forms and the last is the most recent (though no dates appear on the index). For this one you can see #8 is listed as passed by both House and Senate).
The link takes you to yet another outline of links for the text, but there is also a Printer Friendly Display link which is more of a document form but I wonder if it is the entire text.
Warning: looking through the index table can be nauseating, especially looking at some of the items time is wasted on when they don't bother to read or even give time to read $X trillion spending bills before passing them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
