I don't know if we can call Rick Nolan of Minnesota a freshman
congressman. Technically, he is one of the incoming congressmen of the
113th Congress, but Nolan's been there before. He was part of the 94th
through 96th Congress as well. And he's noticed a whole lot of changes
since the last time he walked the halls of Congress. One thing that
sticks out like a sore thumb? The work hours:
"My first term, we worked 48 out of 52 weeks," Nolan said on Friday's
edition of The Daily Rundown. "Most of those days were four and five day
weeks. We were in committee virtually every morning, we were on the
floor of the House throughout the afternoons and the evenings and we
were working in the process of governing which is what we're elected to
do."
He expressed his disappointment that Congress is only currently
scheduled to work 34 out of 52 weeks and considers most of those days
"not real."
"We went into session Monday, for example, we don't have any votes
scheduled until 6:30 in the evening, we were also scheduled to work on
Tuesday-which we did-and then we were scheduled to work on Wednesday and
we took the day off," Nolan said.
Nolan quickly agreed with the public's sentiment "everybody's
campaigning and nobody's governing," saying Congress isn't governing
like they should especially with all the serious issues the country is
facing. He told Todd that the time given for Congressional members to
campaign and the money they use has become "toxic."
"I mean, we're told here two things," he said. "One is the one with the
most money gets the most votes and number two - you should be spending
30 hours a week in fundraising and call time-dialing for dollars."
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