The Catholic Schools are Back!

Remember my second rant, way back in the early days of a couple weeks ago? It concerned the peculiarity that one of the first items that is brought up in congress every year is a resolution saying how great Catholic schools are. It didn't happen last year, but my theory was that it didn't happen because congress was still in recess during Catholic Schools Week and that it might return this year.

Guess what? I was right.

Senate Resolution 22: A resolution recognizing the goals of Catholic Schools Week and honoring the valuable contributions of Catholic schools in the United States.

Yes, on Tuesday, the two senators from Louisiana brought this bill to the floor, which then passed by unanimous consent. To say nothing of the separation between church and state, why the heck are we still passing resolutions like this now? In a time when thousands of people are losing their jobs every day, and the President is trying to push through a bill to stem the tide of job losses and home foreclosures, we really don't have anything better to do than suck up to the Catholics?

Seriously?

Worst Offenders List Improvements

I though I'd take some time out to let you know about the ongoing updates to this website.

You'll notice that the Worst Offenders list has changed. Specifically, the numbers next to the worst offenders themselves have become larger. This is because I have now included cosponsorships in the offender totals. Typically, these stupid resolutions have a sponsor and a number (often a large number) of cosponsors. Well, I blame cosponsors just as much as the principal sponsors for wasting the government's time, so now they won't be off the hook.

Also, you'll notice that the time wasted statistics are no longer multiples of forty minutes. The method I was using to determine time wasted usually cited the official time allocated for a debate in the House of Representatives (forty minutes) and not the actual time spent in debate (if you can call it debate). I've now come up with a method of more accurately determining the time spent on these resolutions that doesn't involve twelve-hour C-span marathons, so my statistics are now much more representative of actual time wasted.

So now the Worst Offenders list is more complete and more accurate. I'm still working out minor bugs here and there, and there will be an error or two due to the fact that I had to do some of the data entry manually, but those won't take long to fix. Once that is complete, I will start on the section that will allow you to search stupid votes by the sponsors' states and by date, among other things. Enjoy!

The House Engages in a Fit of Irony

No surprise, the House of Representatives is at it again. Yesterday, they decided to parrot the Senate by saying how great the pilot of that crashed plane was (See yesterday's discussion for my parrot rant). However, they also declared yet another useless national day of recognition. Here are the resolutions:

House Resolution 31: Expressing support for designation of January 28, 2009, as "National Data Privacy Day".

House Resolution 84: Honoring the heroic actions of the pilot, crew, and rescuers of US Airways Flight 1549.

Really? Do we really need another national day? January 28 is already National Kazoo Day and National Blueberry Pancake Day. Furthermore, the choice of National Data Privacy Day is highly ironic and a bit insulting. This comes from a government that was caught indiscriminately recording the things we do online. I read the text of the resolution. It says things like "The House of Representatives ... encourages State and local governments to observe the day with appropriate activities that promote awareness of data privacy" and "The House of Representatives ... encourages individuals across the Nation to be aware of data privacy concerns and to take steps to protect their personal information online." The whole text encourages everyone else to do stuff to advance data privacy and says nothing about what the federal government needs to do about it.

What a crock.

The House Stupidly Parrots the Senate

Oh yes, not to be outdone, the House of Representatives last Thursday decided to pass a couple of nonsense do-nothing resolutions that the Senate had already passed!

House Resolution 56: Designating the week of February 2 through February 6, 2009 as National School Counseling Week

House Resolution 58: Commending the University of Florida Gators for winning the Bowl Championship Series National Championship Game

Oh no, I am not kidding. I didn't post a lot of new junk last week because the congress seemed, for a brief moment, to be following President Obama's lead and getting down to the business of fixing the country. That didn't last long. Just two days after Obama took office, the stupid votes began rearing their ugly heads again.

Just to drive home the stupidity of these particular votes, let me point out that these are resolutions. Resolutions don't create laws; they are used to express support for a course of action or disapproval of something that another country did, or just as often, are used to congratulate football teams or to create unofficial weeks of recognition. Let me point out that the Senate alter-egos of these resolutions, Senate Resolution 16 and Senate Resolution 13 already did that! There is no reason for the House to stoop to their level, especially considering that the House version of these resolutions both required forty minutes of "debate". The Senate already gave these unofficial recognitions; why does the House have to waste their time acting as a stupid Senate parrot?

That's right, United States House of Representatives. I called you a stupid Senate parrot. What are you going to do about it?

The Senate Renames, Recognizes, and Congratulates the Day Away

The Senate seems determined not to get any real work done. That is the only conclusion I can reach after reading the bills and resolutions that they passed on Friday. The following is a full accounting of these passed items:

Senate Resolution 15: A resolution acknowledging the lifelong service of Griffin Boyette Bell, a legal icon, to the State of Georgia and to the United States.

Senate Resolution 16: A resolution designating the week of February 2 through February 6, 2009, as "National School Counseling Week".

Senate Resolution 17: A resolution recognizing and honoring Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III, his co-pilot Jeffrey Skiles, the crewmembers of U.S. Airways Flight 1549, and the first responders, ferry operators and tug boat drivers of New York City, for their heroic and intuitive roles in the safe emergency landing of U.S. Airways Flight 1549.

Senate Bill 273: A bill to require the designation of the federally occupied building located at McKinley Avenue and Third Street, S.W., Canton, Ohio, as the "Ralph Regula Federal Office Building and Courthouse".

Okay, I understand that people like Griffin Boyette Bell, and that school counselors need recognition, and that that plane landing in the Hudson was really cool, but can't we recognize those people in a forum other than the floor of the United States Senate? We need to be doing some hard work to get the nation on track.

The last item, however, poses a bit of a quandary, so I'd like to spend a few moments talking about it. You'll notice that it is a bill rather than a resolution. This is due to the fact that it takes an official act of congress to rename federal buildings. But really, should it?

Why is it a part of our laws that in order to rename a federal building, both chambers of congress have to take time out to agree on a name? That's a horrific waste of the precious little time that they've allocated themselves to run the country. How about we change that particular law to authorize some outside commission to handle that sort of thing? This is the sort of thing we can change to make our government more efficient and responsive to the needs of the people. So I've decided that I'm not going to let anyone off the hook for these renaming bills despite the fact that currently, only the congress is authorized to do it. We should change that law rather than wasting time on mundane items such as these. So Sherrod Brown, you're going on the Worst Offenders list too.

The Senate has a Four-Hour Nostalgiafest

I would have congratulated the House and the Senate for not partaking in any stupid votes yesterday. I would have, that is, if the Senate had not done something far worse.

At about 7:30 yesterday morning Eastern time, the Senate decided to take a few moments to say farewell to Joe Biden, the incoming Vice President, and Hillary Clinton, the incoming Secretary of State. Biden had been a senator for 36 years, making him the twelfth-longest serving senator. Clinton is a former First Lady. For this occasion, I wouldn't have begrudged the Senate a few brief remarks on their behalf.

The only problem is that those brief remarks lasted over four hours.

That's right, the Senate spent half their day, covered pages and pages and pages of the congressional record, heaped praises and generally sucked up to the new Vice President and Secretary of State. Biden and Clinton themselves gave rambling speeches to drive the point home about what awesome senators they have been. What a massively unconscionable waste of time that was.

Don't get me wrong; I voted for Obama and Biden, and I'm very optimistic about what they might be able to do for the country. However, one of the things that I believe needs to be done is to cut through all of this junk and get down to the business of solving the country's problems. That is never going to happen if the congress gives hours of rambling inconsequential speeches at the drop of the hat. Cut it out, guys.

There's a reason why I chose puke green as the color scheme for this website.

The Senate likes football.

We have the first of this year's super helpful and relevant sports resolutions! Looking back through historical archives, this is a disgustingly common thing. For example, the winner of the Super Bowl gets an official time-wasting congratulations most years. Yesterday, this passed in the Senate:

Senate Resolution 13: A resolution congratulating the University of Florida football team for winning the 2008 Bowl Championship Series (BCS) national championship.

No, I'm not kidding you. This is often how congress decides to spend its time. Take a look, it's even in the congressional record. I hope the gators feel good about themselves.

Really though, the BCS is a terrible system. It injects all sorts of politics into football. So maybe the Senate was just trying to turn the tables and inject some football into politics. Maybe this is a good thing. I might enjoy watching 70-year-old senators tackle the hell out of each other for the prestigious prize of an amendment allocating funds to remodel their state's zoo. It might actually make C-span exciting.

Oh wait, Taiwan already has that.

New Stupid Votes Features

Oh yes, as I am slowly realizing how great of a resource this website could be, I am gradually adding new features, one by one.

If you'll allow me to direct you to the Worst Offenders list on the right, you'll notice that it looks a little different. Originally, I was going to simply base it on tags with which I was marking each post, but then I realized I could make it so, so much better. I've set up a database with two tables. One is a table of stupid resolutions passed by congress. The other is a table of the congresspeople who stupidly propose these resolutions. When I moosh the two together, out pops the new Worst Offenders list. Not only can you click on a congressperson to bring up a list of stupid resolutions they've proposed, but the whole thing is now split into two lists. The second list keeps track of how much time their resolutions waste in debate (and again, I use the term "debate" loosely).

There are more features coming in the very, very near future, such as direct links from each resolution to the post where I discuss it (read: poke fun at it). There will also be a drop down list that will allow you to find out what stupid resolutions your senator or congressperson has brought to the floor. Be sure to check that when they're up for re-election.

Enjoy!

Congress makes mentors feel special

Yes, the stupid votes are now rolling in with the full force of the United States Government. In the midst of a financial crisis when ideas are being thrown in left and right about what caused it and how we might fix it, the House of Representatives decided to take two hours off to contemplate three inconsequential resolutions. It's the trifecta of stupidity! Here are the three that passed yesterday:

House Resolution 41: Supporting the goals and ideals of National Mentoring Month 2009.

House Resolution 43: Recognizing the efforts of those who serve their communities on Martin Luther King Day and promoting the holiday as a day of national service.

House Resolution 50: Honoring the life of Claiborne Pell, distinguished former Senator from the State of Rhode Island.

All three prompted 40 minutes of debate (I use the term "debate" loosely), and
all three were passed by full roll-call votes. Sadly, they all passed unanimously. Not one representative voted "present" (I would applaud any representative who votes "present" on resolutions such as these in protest of the waste of the government's time).

I'm going to take a little time to discuss the most stupid of the three: the bill passed to support the goals and ideals of National Mentoring Month. This one has a special place in my heart because I myself am a mentor. And frankly, I'm insulted. I'm insulted that the government would waste so much of its time and taxpayer money to suck up to me instead of doing its job during this time of financial crisis. If you really want to honor the things I do, pass a bill to put some money in mentoring programs. Or pass a completely unrelated but useful bill in the name of mentors. Or get together in your off-hours and hold hands and sing a song. I don't care, just as long as it's not such a waste of congress's time.

Do you realize how many of these silly months have been created? January alone is National Bath Safety Month, National Book Month, National Diet Month, National Egg month, National Eye Health Care Month, National Fiber Focus Month, National Glaucoma Awareness Month, National Hobby Month, National Hot Tea Month, National Mail Order Gardening Month, National Retail Bakers Month, National Soup Month, National Stalking Awareness Month, National Volunteer Blood Donor Month, and yes, National Mentoring Month. If congress took 40 minutes out to recognize each of these months, they would be at it for ten hours! Fortunately, it's not quite that bad, but even a few is bad enough for me.

In my book, the only thing worse than taking time out to create a national month to congratulate some random group of people is taking time out again and again to re-congratulate them every time that month happens to appear. Let's cut this junk out guys, okay?

The stupid votes have commenced!

After some digging and some paying of close attention, we have our first stupid vote, of sorts. Actually, it happened a few days ago.

I have been having trouble finding a concise list of all passed bills and resolutions for either the House or the Senate. I thought I had a good list, but it turned out that it was only a list of passed items that involved a roll-call vote. It doesn't show anything, for example, for resolutions that pass by unanimous consent, which seems to be how some of these get approved.

The best I have been able to do so far involves manually skimming through the Thomas database run by the Library of Congress, which lists all actions taken on all bills and resolutions. It has a search engine which theoretically should allow me to weed through them easier, but it doesn't seem to work very well.

So manually skim through the database I did, and that is how I discovered today's topic of discussion:

Senate Resolution 8: A resolution relative to the death of the Honorable Claiborne de Borda Pell, former United States Senator for the State of Rhode Island.

This passed by unanimous consent on Tuesday, one day before I originally talked about it.

Now I know that this is a more sensitive issue than the stupid votes relating to catholic schools and baseball that I intend to talk about most of the time, so let me make myself very clear. I think it's right and proper for the Senate to honor one of its fallen former members if that is what they wish to do. However, I would rather they do it on their own time, when congress is not in session, instead of taking time away from working on this country's problems.

This was passed by unanimous consent, which doesn't take a lot of the Senate's time, making this very much a lesser offense. Due to that and the fact that I already added Senator Harry Reid to the Worst Offenders list because of this and other resolutions, I will refrain from bumping him up the list for this. However, this is the sort of resolution that could easily lead to long-winded proclamations about the life and accomplishments of a former senator, and those do take significant time away from the Senate (this has happened many times before even without a resolution). I would rather this sort of thing not be brought up in an official capacity while the Senate is in session.

Honestly, I am sympathetic to those who have lost a colleague, but let's honor these people by doing good work in their names and not by delaying needed proceedings to pass unnecessary resolutions.

Catholic schools feel honored again and again and again...

While waiting for this year's first stupid resolutions to come up for a vote, I decided to look at historical records to see how long I would have to wait. It turns out that this year, they're a bit slow on the uptake. Usually, stupid votes are among Congress's first few at the beginning of the new year. This year, there have been six votes and none of them are stupid.

However, as I was going back through the historical records, I discovered an odd pattern. I noticed several years where the same inane resolution was one of the first to be brought up for a vote in the House. Again and again this resolution was passed. I dug a little deeper and here's what I found:

2001 Senate Resolution 24: Honoring the contributions of Catholic schools.

2002 House Resolution 335: A resolution honoring the contributions of Catholic Schools.

2003 House Resolution 26: Honoring the Contributions of Catholic Schools

2004 House Resolution 492: Honoring the Contributions of Catholic Schools

2005 House Resolution 23: Honoring the Contributions of Catholic Schools

2006 House Resolution 657: Honoring the Contributions of Catholic Schools

2007 House Resolution 51: Honoring the Contributions of Catholic Schools

Seriously guys? On January 29, 2002, just four and a half months after the terrorist attacks of September 11th of the previous year, the United States House of Representatives decided that instead of spending time solving the nation's problems and making the nation safer, they wanted to spend forty minutes debating exactly how to congratulate Catholic schools for being awesome. Fourty Minutes! And then they passed resolution after resolution every year since, except for 2008. This is the kind of thing that makes me sick. And it's always one of the first things on the agenda. Look, I made a cool chart:


Take a look there at 2004. In a year when we were at war, the first order of business for the House was to say what a great thing it is that we have Catholic schools. Item number one! And you may tell me, "But Joe, Catholic School Week is in January, so it has to be one of the first things they do," to which I say no. This sort of junk should always be on the bottom of the agenda for our highest institutions of government.

Fortunately, 2008 seems to have broken the tradition. Will it rear its ugly head again this year? If it does, I would encourage our Representatives to vote Present in protest of the wasting of our time on these things when there are so many bigger tasks to be accomplished.

The stupid votes are coming!

So I said below that congress likes to wait a bit for people to stop paying attention before working on their time-waster resolutions. Well, I was wrong. I took a peek at the congressional activities since the eleventy-first congress convened, and here is just some of what I found:

House Resolution 6: Recognizing the significant contribution coaches make in the life of children who participate in organized sports and supporting the goals and ideals of National Coaches Appreciation Week.

House Resolution 16: Supporting the goals and ideals of National Life Insurance Awareness Month.

House Resolution 18: Honoring the life, achievements, and contributions of Paul Newman.

Senate Resolution 5: A resolution expressing the support for prayer at school board meetings.

Senate Resolution 7: A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate regarding designation of the month of November as "National Military Family Month".

Senate Resolution 8: A resolution relative to the death of the Honorable Claiborne de Borda Pell, former United States Senator for the State of Rhode Island.

Now, I'm not saying these things aren't important. I'm sure they're very meaningful to a number of people. I'm saying that passing these resolutions aren't congress's job! Let's appoint some outside commission to do this junk and let the congress fix things like, oh, I dunno.. the economy!

Just sayin'.

For the record, none of these have passed yet. I just dug deeply through congressional records to see what was coming. I had to sift through a lot of stuff to find these, so I'm not going to make a habit of it. However, when and if these resolutions (and others) come up for a vote, you had better believe you'll hear about it.

For now, I'm going to make the three people who introduced these resolutions the charter members of the Worst Offenders list.

Stupid Votes is online!

Hello! Let me introduce myself. I am Joe Space Tourist, or rather, that is what I call myself here. I call myself that because of the other website I run by the same name. That website is primarily about space tourism, but I find myself ranting frequently about political issues.

In particular, one of my biggest pet peeves is the amount of time and resources that are wasted by congress, and how few people are aware of it. It's incredible how much time they waste voting on resolutions to say how awesome the American flag is or holding hearings on baseball games. These things have no place in our congress; they have bigger fish to fry, and they already have far too little time to take care of the nation's business between all of the vacations and fundraising. Sometimes they do it to hide earmarks. Sometimes they do it to avoid discussing embarrassing issues. And sometimes they do it for no reason that is apparent to me. In any case, it makes the government less effective and less transparent. And if they're going to waste their time with this junk instead of doing their jobs, they should be fired.

So my mission here is to make more people aware of this travesty, and to provide a few good laughs in the process. I'll keep a tally on the left of the worst offenders: the people who introduces stupid bills, the people who hold stupid hearings, and the like. I may think of a few creative ways to track other statistics too.

And I will start with the eleventy-first congress, which convened yesterday. The stupid votes don't usually start popping up when a new congress has just convened and everyone is actually paying attention, so it may be a bit of time before I post the first. But when it happens, I'll be right here to make fun of them.

Enjoy!