Congressmen worried more about losing jobs than passing legislation
By: Steven Goodman – Asst. Opinions Editor
Recently, President Obama announced that he would essentially delay any legislation or executive action on immigration until after the midterm election.
He then attempted to fight through the questions about why he was waiting until after an election.
After all, that seems like a somewhat suspicious date to pinpoint. Obama tried to convince the many interviewers that this delay had nothing to do with the current races for seats in the Senate, to no avail.
Frankly, it seems to me that the majority of representatives in Congress (although the Senate is in public view more than the House) and the president are much more interested in keeping their party in control and scoring votes than even attempting to pass legislation.
While there’s nothing wrong with desiring to hold onto your position in Congress, it seems to be the sole focus of the Senate, House and even the presidency, which is not ok.
When the president announced he would be delaying any action on immigration until after the midterm elections, there were shouts from Republicans about Obama breaking another promise.
There were even blame-filled responses from Democrats, such as Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who said that “timid” Democrats need to “get out of the way” and demanded that Obama take action on immigration immediately.
Obama’s defense of his delay on immigration was not far off the path of blaming the opposite party.
In an interview with Meet the Press, when asked if a “two-seat-Democratic majority and a two-seat-Republican majority” would really be that different, Obama attempted to state in the affirmative.
His response was that “there’s a sharp difference between the Democratic agenda and the Republican agenda” and then proceeded to explain that a Democratic Senate would introduce bills on minimum wage and a Republican-led Senate would not.
Lately, I feel that there would be very little, if any, difference between a Democratic or Republican Senate; there would still be gridlock among those that care more about holding the title of Senator or Representative than actually being one.
There is constant blame from one party to another, sometimes within the same party, and more time is spent in this act than that of passing legislation on major issues.
My thought is that perhaps capping the number of terms an individual can hold in Congress would help. It might remove, at least slightly, the constant focus on attracting voters to keep a person in office.
Either way, at this point I would be much happier to see a bipartisan bill passed on immigration with a substantial majority vote than passing a bill I completely agree with.