iPads on the House Floor

posted at 8:52 am on December 26, 2010 by Jazz Shaw
[ Congress ]   

When voters once again went to the polls looking for “change” on November 2nd, I’m not sure this is what they had in mind. The new rules for the next Congress include a provision which will allow the use of electronic devices on the House floor, provided they don’t “impair decorum.”

The new rule would relax the complete ban on the use of gadgets like the iPad, iPhone or BlackBerry on the floor. Mobile phones, tablet computers and the whole universe of applications that run on them will be officially available to House members as they conduct business.

Members still may not talk on the phone in the chamber and are supposed to use the devices for official business only, according to a spokesman for the soon-to-be speaker, John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio. But as long as the mute switch is on, lawmakers will be free to tap away.

While I generally try to avoid the appearance of the old curmudgeon yelling for the kids to keep off his darn lawn, this simply strikes me as a bad idea. I’m not opposed to members of Congress taking full advantage of today’s technological miracles to do their jobs more efficiently and communicate with their constituents, but there is a time and place for everything. It’s not like it wasn’t already happening on the sly, (paging John Kerry to the White Lack of Courtesy Phone) but that doesn’t mean we need to formalize it as an institution.

It’s just one more step away from what we originally paid these people to do. It’s become all too common to see a lone congressman standing and addressing a nearly empty hall, speaking to nobody but the CSPAN cameras while his or her colleagues are off dashing about on their own affairs, only scurrying back in to the chamber when an actual vote is called. Weren’t these people supposed to be debating the great issues of the day with each other? Don’t we expect them to at least make a pretense of listening to the various points of view before they vote?

How sad if this results in a hall full of elected representatives lounging around and tapping on their Blackberries, clearly ignoring their fellows who have the floor. If the GOP wants to change the rules this time around, perhaps they could begin taking attendance for who is actually in the chamber and doing their job, rather than simply who shows up for the vote.

Now you can yell at Jazz for being a stupid, wrong-headed RINO even faster than by just leaving a comment. Follow him on Twitter! @JazzShaw

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