Posted on 11/01/2014 1:41:16 PM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
March 22, 2013, 10:22 pm GOP lawmaker seeks 'virtual Congress' with telecommuting plan By Jennifer Martinez Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) wants to create a "virtual Congress," where lawmakers would leverage videoconferencing and other remote work technology to conduct their daily duties in Washington from their home districts.
Under a resolution Pearce introduced on Thursday, lawmakers would be able to hold hearings, debate and vote on legislation virtually from their district offices.
While Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer may have recently nixed the Web company's work-from-home policy to boost its performance, Pearce believes a remote work arrangement may benefit Congress and make lawmakers more accountable to folks in their home districts.
Pearce says the resolution would eradicate the need for members to jet back and forth from their districts to Washington each weekend. This would allow lawmakers to spend more time with their constituents rather than the armies of lobbyists from K St., he argues.
Thanks to modern technology, members of Congress can debate, vote, and carry out their constitutional duties without having to leave the accountability and personal contact of their congressional districts. Keeping legislators closer to the people we represent would pull back Washington's curtain and allow constituents to see and feel, first-hand, their government at work," Pearce told The Hill in a statement.
"Corporations and government agencies use remote work technology; its time that Congress does the same," the New Mexico Republican said. He introduced the same resolution during the last congressional session.
to conduct their daily [emphasis added] duties in Washington from their home districts."
While I say why not? concerning Rep. Pierces proposal to run the federal government by telecommunication, I question the following about Rep. Pierce. Is he wise to the federal governments constitutionally limited powers which he has heard his fellow lawmakers read out loud twice since he has been a federal rep.?
After all, military issues aside, since one of the very few powers that the states have delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, to regulate an aspect of intrastate commerce which affects many citizens on an almost daily basis is to decide policy for the US Mail Service, I dont understand why Congress needs to discuss the mail service on an almost daily basis.
It would be much better to do this. Congressmen would be much more concerned with their own districts if they actually stayed there. But it will never happen, for the precise reason that it is a good idea. Congressmen want to be in DC, they don’t want to be amongst the peasants. They want to be fawned over by lobbyists, feel like they made it to the big leagues. No way they would go for it, and no way the lobbyists would go for it.
My money is on them not wanting to be there in DC when the SHtF.
What happened in Canada has pushed their thinking into a shortened time frame.
HF
This is actually a great idea.
“The Capitol should have been in KS anyway, centrally located. It was a mistake to leave it in the swamps of the Potomac.”
As a native of California, and a first born I spent a lot of time with my parents, driving around the West as a child. Remember paper maps, free at filling stations, etc.?
Anyway, they taught me a lot about our country with those maps. One thing they were big on:
The culture at the time was East Coast driven. People called places like Ohio “Mid West” when I could see on the map that the Mid West was Kansas, plus or minus.
Between then and now the population has moved west and south, too. Yet we still are forced to take our news, politics etc. from New York, Washington DC and the Eastern Time Zone.
maybe this would give less power to the lobbyists
Great idea however - they would have to get their haircuts and work outs locally - I’ll bet most of them wouldnt ever know where that was in their district.
I’m sure it would.
Our “Representatives” need to be ‘normal’ people like the rest of us, and their work in DC should be a part time type thing. Instead, they usually go up there half broke, and come out millionaires....
My plan is to sell off Washington DC to the highest bidder as a theme park.
Move the Capital to about 70 miles north of I-70 in Missouri. Dormitories and cafeterias. 90 days in the spring and 90 days in the fall unless there is an emergency.
Then, the elected elites, can spend the bulk of their lives back with the dooshes that elected them in the first place.
Oh, and no elegant cocktail parties or dinners.
Then the cesspool would’ve been in the Plains.
This reminds me of my plan to reduce pollution and congestion. All government workers whose jobs allow them to telecommute should do so. Once the practice is established, all those jobs can be outsourced to the Philippines.
In addition to the Capitol Building:
The office buildings house the individual offices of each U.S. Representative and Senator as well as committee hearing rooms, staff rooms, multiple cafeterias, and areas for support, committee, and maintenance staff. The congressional office buildings are connected to the Capitol by means of several underground trainsthe Capitol Subway System. Congressional pages are responsible for carrying packages and messages from the two chambers to the buildings.
The three Senate office buildings are along Constitution Avenue north of the Capitol:
Russell Senate Office Building (RSOB, completed 1908)
Dirksen Senate Office Building (DSOB, completed 1958)
Hart Senate Office Building (HSOB, completed 1982)
The three House office buildings are along Independence Avenue south of the Capitol:
Cannon House Office Building (CHOB, completed 1908)
Longworth House Office Building (LHOB, completed 1933)
Rayburn House Office Building (RHOB, completed 1965)
A fourth building, the Ford House Office Building, which used to house the FBI’s fingerprint records, sits a few blocks southwest of the others.
The U.S. Capitol Complex also includes a Page Residence Hall both on the House side of the Capitol.
This is forehead slappingly the next evolution in participatory democracy. One day, knock wood, we’ll be smart enough to dispense with representational government all together, Plato notwithstanding. We have the technology, we have the data, we don’t have a sane, rational citizenry. But the technology will eventually dictate that we let the data speak for itself and show us how to get from point A to point B.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq9yjt_JbWs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_fp5kaVYhk
I have no problem with having designated Senators & Representatives handling governmental affairs: kind of a group think many minds vs one community organizer thing.
However, our Legislative branch has become exceedingly corrupt. It long overdue to REPEAL the 12th Amendment to re-empower the states within the Federal Government.
ADDENDUM:
We could probably BALANCE the budget with JUST E-Congress!
If they must party, let it be with their constituents, their true EMPLOYERS!! I still say they need to be in glass offices, where we can watch everything they do. A million e-mails are easy to ignore, not so a crowd of angry voters staring in your window.
Kasich studied this and tried to propose it but could get no one else to support it.
With nothing being hacker-proof, so far, we would then be open to countries hacking in and affecting elections, legislation, etc. When it can be proven to be flawless, then maybe.
>>I have no problem with having designated Senators & Representatives handling governmental affairs: kind of a group think many minds vs one community organizer thing.
Yah, but the corruption is almost a requirement to get elected anymore. Outlaw lobbying, make reps hold town meetings, require them to possess an I.Q. of 150 or above. We simply need to get smarter faster.
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