Friday, October 21, 2011

A Big Victory Shout Out



This site allows allows you to type in a member of Congress and see how many bills he/she has introduced, how many earmarks he/she have asked for and received. The site does not give its definition of earmarks, nor tell if the bills are for one's entire career (I suspect it is), but nonetheless, it is an interesting starting point.


Judy Biggert (R) our representative from the 13th District has just two bills to her credit as of 2010. She was first elected in 1998. She won re-election in 2010 to a seventh term with 64% of the vote.

But she has given a big shout out to WVHS. I found the above video on the Warrior's Back-to-Back State Champion Women's Soccer Team Website. A couple of summers ago U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert gives her one-minute shout out to the Tribe. While we make fun of these "One-minute resolutions" legislatures use them to make constituents feel happy and proud. I did when I saw it.

Do we like our lawmakers doing this type of constituent service for us, or is it really a waste of time when there are more important matters at hand?

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/clip.php?appid=595320026

4 comments:

Ralf said...

Although the thought behind this speech is nice I think it would be much smarter for our representatives to spend their time writing speeches about subjects with substance behind them. It's alright to mention something like this but it shouldn't be the sole reason for going up to speak. It became apparent just how useless this shout out was when the man following our representative is talking about an actually important issue like visas.

Anonymous said...

I would have to say that this is a big waste of time. This speech is perfect for when she is actually here in Aurora giving a speech to some school or institution, but in Washington D.C. it makes no sense. She is only plugging Waubonsie becuase it will make us happy, but the problem is, not many of us check in with her minute speeches. Nobody else in Congress really cares that much about a soccer team from some town. She could definitaly be making a strong argument for something that is truly important instead of plugging a local school. Sorry Bigger, I love the respect but I would rather see some work.

~ James

James H said...

I didnt quite know where to put this, but here is some info on our Senators.

Mark Kirk - Our Republican Senator. Elected in november 2010 in a special election to fill Obama's seat. Won with 48% of the vote. he is on the Appropriation CM; the Banking, housing, and Urban Affairs CM; the Special CM on Aging; and the Health, Educatio, Labor, and Pensions CM. he is a member of the Naval reserve. He also has the candy desk. Divorced. He has a good website.

Dick Durbin - Our Democrat Senator. Our Senior Senator, he was first elected in 1996. He won 68% of the vote in 2008. He is on the Appropriations CM; the Foreign Relations CM; the Judiciary CM; the Rules and Administration CM; and the joint Committee on the Library (likes to read?). He is married. Supported by the American Soybean Association. He has a bad website. He supports the Dream Act.

Isn't it weird how nice their names sound. One is alliteration and the other is short and sweet( pun intended).

So that is pretty much all you need to know.

Anonymous said...

Our representatives should be completely aloof of the general riff-raff, like the colonial officers of the British Empire. Any reference to local high school sports and the like are a waste of precious time, because as we all know, Congress would get so much done and solve so many problems if they had an extra minute or so of time. They should not care about winning votes at all for listening to their constituents is silly.