As a side note, the question I have these days is “Why on earth would anyone want to be a member of the House of Representatives?”
A two year seat means you are constantly running, constantly having to raise money and be on the road and eating chicken and rigatoni and green beans at pot luck dinners with people who are invariably pissed at you, you don’t make that much money and have to maintain two residences, and what we have learned the last few months is no one gives a shit what you think.
You could be a member of the House for 30 years, work your ass off to get a bill passed, and then all your work gets stripped out by some jackass in the Senate. Remember in nursery school when you would finally get a neat tower built out of lincoln logs, and some jackass would walk along and knock it over the moment you turned around. It would be like that. Every single day.
Why would anyone want to do that as a career?
Michael D.
Because the payoff comes AFTER you do this job.
And it’s big.
joe from Lowell
Besides that, why would you want to have to go up to strangers, tell them how wonderful you are, and ask them for money…for a living?
Politicians aren’t like you and me. Maybe that’s why there are political dynasties – because you have to grow up watching daddy do this for it to seem like a reasonable career choice.
Stooleo
No sane person would, that’s why, at their core, all politicians are narcissists.
Kryptik
Some like the job security.
You think assholes like Bachmann, Steve King, and some others could really get elected outside of their particular districts?
Zifnab
Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert did a great job of hammering legislation through the House. And on the Senate side, Bill Frist did a good job of telling Senate Democrats to sit down, shut up, and pass the bill.
Ultimately, the Republicans knew how to break the Democratic minority in the Senate, and from there the House could throw up whatever Terri Shavio craziness floated out of their fat kesters.
But this is landmark legislation, not a quick money grab for your campaign contributors back home. You’re not trying to pick up $10 million for a highway through Chatanoga. You’re trying to overhaul a trillion dollar health insurance industry.
When you want to pass the easy shit, being a House Rep is a sweet deal. When you want to pass the hard bills, it’s thankless.
Carnacki
They do it for the kicks, man. They do it for the kicks.
neill
You get yer union card for K Street…
put in yer dues and gravy train for the rest of your life — sweet!
my guy, de fazio, has this silly idea of public service and the even sillier one of the common good. of being a decent leader…sisyphean as that sounds, some folks are decent, still. imagine…
MikeJ
Fuck you.
I know plenty of decent people who work in public service.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Power baby, power.
Walk around the House office buildings sometime. You’re surrounded by hottie staffers, lobbyists willing to grease various body parts, family body parts, etc with money, sexy oil, etc etc.
It’s an intoxicating place to be if you’re that kind of person.
Having spent time dealing with Hill staffers (some of the most amoral bastards I ever had the misfortune of dealing with and that includes the conservatard CIA analysts I had the misfortune of dealing with for 10+ years), I can see how that atmosphere (and it really is another world) makes all the so-called crap candidates hafta go thru a worthwhile thing to do.
Plus, you’d be quite surprised at how little most Congress people hafta do to get elected. Most districts are gerrymandered to death so once you’re in office, it ain’t that hard to stay in office.
And what Mike D said in post #1
GReynoldsCT00
forget it
Sentient Puddle
My guess is that many see it as a springboard to the Senate. I know that’s how I’d look at it if I wanted to hold elected office.
Also, what @Michael D. said. Ex-congressmen can very easily get lucrative jobs as lobbyists because they’ve been exposed to the inside. So if my goal was to hold power without necessarily being elected, I’d get elected to the House, spend the two years doing whatever the fuck I wanted, and if I lost, go lobby.
General Winfield Stuck
Over achieving used car salesman?
GReynoldsCT00
Trying again.
From the WSJ:
EDINBURGH — The expenses racked up by U.S. lawmakers traveling here for a conference last month included one for the “control room.”
Besides rooms for sleeping, the 12 members of the House of Representatives rented their hotel’s fireplace-equipped presidential suite and two adjacent rooms. The hotel cleared out the beds and in their place set up a bar, a snack room and office space. The three extra rooms — stocked with liquor, Coors beer, chips and salsa, sandwiches, Mrs. Fields cookies and York Peppermint Patties — cost a total of about $1,500 a night. They were rented for five nights.
While in Scotland, the House members toured historic buildings. Some shopped for Scotch whisky and visited the hotel spa. They capped the trip with a dinner at one of the region’s finest restaurants, paid for by the legislators, who got $118 daily stipends for meals and incidentals.
ppcli
As Ronnie Hawkins said to his backup musicians when he recruited them: “Son, you won’t get much money, but you’ll get more chicks than Frank Sinatra”.
(The Hawk, of course, didn’t say “chicks” but rather something more feline.)
dmsilev
Well, you have a chance to *become* one of those Senatorial jackasses. That’s something to aspire to.
-dms
The Moar You Know
Per diem. You’re quite literally getting paid twice. And the job opportunities after you leave are unreal.
Jim Crozier
Because most people aren’t looking to make it a CAREER. They’re looking to make it an entry level job that eventually leads to the Senate.
And the Senate is a grand place to be as we’ve seen. You get to play god with hundreds of thousands of lives and never get called on it. You make a great salary, serve six year terms, and, for the most part, almost never REALLY need to worry about getting reelected in most districts.
And if you play your cards right, then you get to constantly be mentioned as possible presidential or vice presidential candidates and give limitless interviews talking about your particular pet peeves and problems with any piece of legislation or appointee.
PeakVT
and then all your work gets stripped out by some jackass in the Senate.
The extraordinary power of the Senate is a relatively new situtation. There are also reasons to think it will be temporary. Of course, some Democratic Representatives may not see it that way, which explains why there have been 10 resignations already, despite the members being part of the the majority.
DougMN
Won’t see new HCR bill ‘For decades’ – Jesus John. Let it go. If the Dems wanted to come back the next day with a new HCR bill, they could.
EdTheRed
Because every once in awhile, you could put a rider in a random bill that kicked over the log cabin made of Lincoln Logs that the kids who live in DC spent years building, and there would be nothing they could do about it. This would make you feel a warm feeling where your soul should be.
R-Jud
@Michael D.: This. For many Reps, it’s a springboard, either to the senate, to a cozy lobbying job or other boardroom-type job. My Mom’s a small-time politician, and some state party people approached her recently about running for state Rep or possibly even US Rep. Both positions were pitched to her as the gateway to more money first, public service second.
She’s happy staying local. As long as the state passes a budget, she can get shit done.
Kryptik
@PeakVT:
It’s probably only going to last until Republicans take Congress back. Then it’ll be ‘hey, we only need 51 votes, and why are you Democrats being so mean and not voting with your centrist colleagues?’
Legalize
If you attain a position of predictable security, you’re set. You don’t have to do any of that stuff. It does sound like a gig in middle management, where you have to tell people to do stuff, but the people above you never back you up, don’t care that you exist, and don’t care what credibility you have with the people under you. Seems like a Rep. has to be either aiming higher, biding his time; or totally unambitious.
Brian J
All things considered, it’s probably easier to get into national politics by running for the House. And while you are constantly running, or at least so much so that it seems that way, your chances of having a pretty decent job are high, if reelection rates are any indication.
On another note, here is a good column by Thomas Frank, where he describes the futility of trying to meet the insane demands of those who piss and moan about the allegedly liberal media. The fact that he calls out The Washington Post in particular is nice.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I disagree with the notion that most people running for the House do it as a stepping stone to the Senate. Sure, a lot of Senators are ex-House members but running for the Senate is *real* work.
As Kryptik said in #4, most House members couldn’t get elected State Dog Catcher if it meant running for office outside their district. The question mainly comes down to if their ego allows them to recognize that fact.
Okay, sure, most could get elected to one of the lower-tier statewide offices (Katherine Harris and The Twins are a good example of that) but running statewide for something federal is an entirely different ball game. I’ve seen that time and time again here in Misery. Even the nuttiest wingnuts have trouble expanding their appeal outside the base and unfortunately for them, a lot of states actually have a population that’s not part of the perpetual 24% of this country that is totally unhinged.
Campaigning for the Senate requires real fund raising prowness, not some backwards House district with 3 small teevee markets (like mine) that don’t need much other than the party machine and enough dough to blanket the airwaves a month before the election. And since you’re running in a friendly, gerrymandered district, the effort level is relatively small.
The Senate is the big leagues and most House members are playing AA Ball on a good day. Plus, the perks and power for such limited effort is hard to walk away.
Will
I read in “Inventing Al Gore” that he enjoyed being in the House more than the Senate. He was able to open investigations easier, to do more interesting and fulfilling committee work, etc. In the Senate, it was 100 massive egomaniacs who all thought they would be President one day (including him). Not a fun club to be in.
Kryptik
@Brian J:
It was a good column.
Then I made the mistake of reading the comments section for the column. I’m depressed all over again.
Pangloss
You know who’s got a great gig? The people that are there for only two years and don’t care if they get re-elected. They get a kick-ass pension, a ticket to a high six or low seven figure salary, and their name in the history books. If they get re-elected, so be it. If not, what’s the big deal?
Why these people whore themselves out for two more years of subservience to corporate assholes is beyond me.
Will
@DougMN:
Sure, but it wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting passed. And when was the last time a major health care bill was introduced? 1993? That was 16 years ago. Not specifically “decades”, but close enough.
Brian J
@DougMN:
It’s not that there won’t be proposals. There has been all sorts of proposed legislation floating around for years. It’s just that by waiting, it is probably a lot less likely to pass.
Rathskeller
I think it’s much like police officers or folks in the army or people in any other large organization. There are some who really excel at their job, who are striving to achieve things in public policy: Barney Frank, Henry Waxman. There are those who have an ideological goal in mind and enough ruthlessness to achieve the power to let them move us all closer to that goal: Pelosi, Tom Delay.
But the majority are in safe, gerrymandered seats. Like cops who never arrest anyone, they receive a reasonable set of rewards for not working very hard. Those pols are just in it for the perks, chicks, mild adulation, and post-office careers as lobbyists. It’s not a hard job if you don’t want it to be. They posture on the appropriate issues (roll the tax and spend liberals speech), they maneuver to get local projects funded, they show up at home and talk to the local press. If they’re in a purple district, they avoid divisive issues (abortion); if they’re in a solid red or blue district, they can mash the hot buttons on those issues, since they’re sure attention getters.
Brick Oven Bill
Plato’s Republic is a very good book, and recommended reading. In it he describes the four forms of society, and the corresponding men who run them. Here we go:
Timocracy (Lovers of Honor)
Oligarchy (Lovers of Money)
Democracy (the democratic man)
Tyranny (the tyrant)
America was Founded as a timocracy, using the Greeks and the Enlightenment as a guide. Well-meaning people intended to transform America from a timocracy into a democracy, not comprehending that democracies always are temporary, and are usually replaced with a tyranny.
Currently though, we pretend to be a democracy, but in practice, are an oligarchy. So the only people who are attracted to elected positions are Lovers of Money.
See also Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein. You will also note that the lower the electoral IQ, the more corrupt the politician.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@PeakVT:
A good point. Somebody go back and ask Joe Cannon or Tip O’Neill how worthless it is being in the House. Remember that appropriations bills have to start in the House, and that’s where the real pork is. And Rahm’s career didn’t start in the Senate, it started in the House.
Sentient Puddle
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Probably depends on the state. In New Mexico, where I grew up, near about everybody knew Heather Wilson, Steve Pearce, and Tom Udall. For them, running for Senate in ’08 was pretty much just relabeling the campaign literature from “House” to “Senate.”
Brian J
@Kryptik:
I almost never read the comments at a newspaper site or any other site that is like a newspaper. Whereas a blog might have a stable roster that exercises a little shame, a lot of sites seem to attract the same two types: those who are selling sex toys or fashion knock offs or those who feel that mentioning their extreme dislike of something for the thousandth time constitutes an informed opinion. It’s almost amusing to think of how shallow these people. And more than few times, I’ve wondered if it’s the same handful of people. I mean, really, how many individuals could describe their dislike of The New York Times in similar words, claiming to be past subscribers who canceled due to the Jayson Blair scandal or something? Perhaps the 28 percent crowd just has nothing better to do.
Ian
Very Very Very wrong
Edit: Try being a dishwasher
gnomedad
@MikeJ:
No doubt. The point is that the incentives and costs select for narcissists. It would be nice if we could change that.
Pangloss
@Brian J: I know a right wing guy who spends all day commenting on blogs and message boards to refine his RW talking points and build up cred for working on campaigns.
jeffreyw
They’re in it for the great health insurance. And they’ve got theirs.
John PM
Why would anyone want to run for the House? Off hand, I think the 98% retention rate has something to do with it. Once you are in, you are in. If you are a long time incumbent, the money for the campaign takes care of itself. Plus, you can draft a bill in the House, and when the Senate pisses all over it, you can blame the Senate for the failure for the bill to pass. Win-win, as far as I can see.
Gozer
@GReynoldsCT00:
Coors? Fucking Coors beer? And they were in Scotland!?
Uncultured hacks.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Sentient Puddle:
Good point. Same would apply in places like the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Gozer:
AKA: Typical ‘Murkin tourists, aka tourons.
Davis X. Machina
Would we have more, or better, or both, public servants if the idea of ‘public servant’ didn’t instantly get ridiculed and ripped to shreds every time it’s mentioned?
Probably not.
Minionero
Simple. The p*ssy!
Sentient Puddle
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: I’d actually refine that a little further and say that states with a few districts might be even better than your Dakotas or Montanas, depending on what district you’re from. Again to take New Mexico (I knew I cited it for a reason!), NM-01 is basically Albuquerque. Win that seat, build up a bit of capital, and now you have a statewide Senate campaign without having campaigned much (if any) in the rest of the state.
Of course, I may be getting too granular with this, or maybe too specific to NM-01. Yeah, I had this shit all figured out in my head when I was an overambitious college student who really fucking hated Wilson.
GReynoldsCT00
@Gozer:
at least they were drinking single malts so that helps a little
Ian
@Brick Oven Bill:
And There Frome Calyfornia TOO!
Citizen Alan
I agree with the general consensus. The best House members do it for the same reason that people who could easily succeed in law school or business school become teachers instead: because they love the work and they feel that the positive things they can accomplish outweigh the negatives of the job. The rest simply view the post as a stepping stone to a better position or in some cases (like Duke Cunningham frex), a remarkable opportunity for grifting.
Stooleo
Mike J @ 8
Wow, thats such a sweet notion. I guess thats why all those altruists up on capital hill are so busy hammering out their differences and doing whats best for the American people, corporations be damned.
Maybe you’d be happier if I’d said “most” politicians.
IndieTarheel
Easier to get into, and tougher to get thrown out of, than the post office.
__
This has been another edition of SATSQ.
Brick Oven Bill
I have previously described sitting next to Al Gore’s personal assistant after being bumped up to First Class on a flight out of DC. This bitch made up lies about the flight attendant and relayed them to the pilot. This bitch was probably wanting to get a free flight. I defended the flight attendant and then this bitch got mad at me.
Here, Schumer calls a flight attendant ‘bitch’ after she makes him secure his cell phone before take-off.
“It’s Harry Reid calling, I guess health care will have to wait until we land.”
Glenn Beck Principle Number Five:
“If you break the law, you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.”
mk3872
Because they are too dumb to get a job in the private sector
Joel
@GReynoldsCT00: Coors beer? Impeach these motherfuckers immediately.
geg6
You have it wrong, John. The House is at least responsive to their voters. Because they have to run every two years and have to actually face the people in their districts.
Burn down the goddam Senate. It’s a less useful and less colorful House of Lords. Filled with privileged fucks who, in general, have fewer accomplishments than my 8 year old niece.
GReynoldsCT00
@geg6:
This!
Comrade Dread
Personally, I think we should change the Constitution so that members of Congress are randomly picked from a pool of registered voters, given a list of questions to answer to ascertain their sanity, and then put on a ballot (with their answers) to be voted on by the citizenry. And no advertisements until a week before the election.
Either that, or keep the current system, but instead of elections, we lock all of the candidates in an office building with limited resources to make weapons and have a group battle royal with the survivors taking their offices.
Tsulagi
Michael D. got the wallet part, and comrade scott’s agenda of rage got the fleshy part. They might as well hang the Air Force officers’ motto over the Capitol building entrance: What goes TDY, stays TDY.
gopher2b
The money is actually probably pretty good. I think they make $160K and in most districts (which are rural) that’s a king’s ransom. And I guarantee you that in the urban districts, the representative’s spouse is working a job he/she could never have gotten on their own for some serious coin ($300-$500k).
Oh, and most are male and don’t mind spending the week in DC away from their wife and kids and would rather spend per diem at the Capital Grill on the new crop of 20 year old interns . I imagine that doesn’t get old.
Shalimar
@Brick Oven Bill: Doesn’t Glenn Beck have a long illegal drug history that he never paid any legal penalty for?
Mike in NC
Fixed
scav
The Health Care.
Aqualad08
For the health insurance…what else? :)
Brick Oven Bill
Glenn Beck has probably done less fewer illegal drugs than Barack, and Glenn is a Citizen. As Glenn did not get caught, and the statute of limitations would have passed, Glenn got no special treatment.
Glenn also did not likely deal crack cocaine.
Funkhauser
To echo @comrade scott’s agenda of rage: The House of Representatives has among the highest rates of re-election of any legislative body in the world. Only a handful of seats are subject to competitive races in any even-numbered year.
It’s a hard job, but there are much more difficult jobs out there.
Grumpy Code Monkey
This makes me think of a line from The West Wing:
“The Republicans are the opposition; the Senate’s the enemy.”
Tax Analyst
Re: “Burning Down the House”
Love the song references, John.
Snark Based Reality
The House is working as designed. It was never meant to have anywhere near the power of the Senate.
NOTABUG.
Jamey
Like others said, because you can make shitloads of money after a short term in office–as a lobbyist, or as a Joe Scarborough-grade fuckstain.
SATSQ. Also.
Jamey
I want to see BoB’s birth certificate.
Hawes
Chris Murphy (Ct-5) came and spoke to our students. I saw a guy who isn’t afraid of hard work and wants to make a difference.
As The Most Interesting Man In The World says:
“It’s never too early to start pumping up your obituary.”
One has to wonder if some of the altercockers retiring have had enough, though.
Shalimar
@Brick Oven Bill:
Considering that Glenn basically admits he spent 1980-1992 or so in a drug-induced haze, I seriously doubt he has done fewer drugs than a man who quit after college.
I see nothing in his principle about only being an upstanding citizen if you get caught. If he was really a man of honor, he would turn himself in and pay for his crimes.
Stooleo
I didn’t think that was a part of the Authoritarian Codex.
TR
I’m trying to decide what’s the stupider part of that sentence — the “less fewer” formulation, or the insinuation that the President of the United States of America is somehow not a citizen.
I know, I know, with Brickhead Bill, it’s all stupid.
Shell
@Brick Oven Bill: Gee, Bill, think you used the word ‘bitch’ enough? Stay classy.
TR
I want to see an EEG reading. All signs point to the fact that he’s brain dead.
Stooleo
OT.
GOP.am is back
danimal
I believe there is more than one poster using Brick Oven Bill. This iteration is demonstrably stupid.
Political blogs from 2007 containing quotes from a politician asking questions about Obama’s possible drug use? How thinly sourced is the BS when that’s the best he can do?
patrick
maybe they’re doing it for the health care coverage options….
Paris
I would do it just for
Those are my favorites.
Comrade Dread
Hot 20 year old interns with big boobs, if you’re a Democrat; or a 5 o’clock shadow and a wetsuit if you’re a Republican.
fraught
There’s the scrumptious chicken and rigatoni and then there’s the Gerald Ford fantasy that lightening might strike if you just stay under the tree long enough for the VP to get indicted and for you to get appointed VP and the unbelievable good fortune to be just sitting there doing absolutely nothing when the President just ups and resigns because he has the morals of a snake and everybody found out about it. Bing! You’re the fucking President and you never have to eat chicken again if you don’t want to. This scenario is lurking there inside every craven dreamer on the rubber chicken circuit who thinks, “If I can just make it to the Congress…”
Dysfunction Junction
Some therapists out there must have made a fortune over this guy.
http://wonkette.com/412769/wonkette-correctly-exactly-predicts-which-congressman-would-fight-dc-gay-marriage#comments
r€nato
lust for power.
which is why we get the politicians we get… vainglorious assholes who only care about accumulating more and more power.
think about it… to succeed at the highest level of any field, you usually have to persevere longer and be more ruthless than all your competitors.
In other careers, that might mean accumulating more knowledge, more skills, more education.
In politics, however, it’s all about power.
Apologies if others have made this point before I came along.
r€nato
@Dysfunction Junction:
thanks for that link. Holy crap.
And in case nobody pointed it out over at Wonkette… Utah is pretty much in the heart of, “we don’t need those Feds telling us what to do” country.
r€nato
@geg6:
Look, I know it’s popular to hate on the Senate at the present because a few senators are being so troublesome on this issue… but there is true wisdom in the way our Congress is set up, even if its inner workings are ugly as hell.
Just think if all you had to do to pass something through Congress was whip up some fauxrage over a nontroversy for a month or two.
r€nato
@Brick Oven Bill:
a Senator is a self-important prick? Regrettable, but I’m sure this kind of rudeness is committed on a daily basis by narcissistic first-class fliers.
Personally, I think it would be a good idea to require congressmen and senators to fly coach every so often.
gopher2b
@Brick Oven Bill:
I’ve never once — never, never, never — shut off my phone/blackberry. It continues to run, receive messages, send messages until we get over 5-10,000 feet and I lose a signal. Yet, every plane has managed to stay in the air.
Dumbest.Rule.Ever.Meant.To.Serve.Airlines’.Interest.Only.
Fuck’em and flight attendants are bitches, especially now that they have the power of an SS agent as soon as you take your seat.
Comrade Luke
Free health care, bitches!