Does Congress Live In The Same America As The Rest Of Us?

On Sunday, Red State shared some information about the spending habits of Congressman Eric Swalwell.

The article notes:

Rob Pyers is the Research Director for California Target Book, a group that provides information on congressional and state legislative election campaigns in California. Pyers posted some intriguing information about Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) on Twitter that our friends over at Twitchy picked up.

The article includes the following Tweets:

The article explains:

“Dem Eric Swalwell, who has submitted the 2nd-highest number of ‘I am unable to physically attend proceedings in the House Chamber due to the ongoing public health emergency’ proxy letters, spent $250K+ on travel & car service in the 1st 9 months of the year,” Pyers said.

Let me explain to those who may not know what the “proxy letters” are. During the pandemic, the House started offering its members the opportunity to have other members vote for them because of the “ongoing public health emergency.” That might have been understandable when people were freaked out initially in the early days of the pandemic, although I don’t think they ever should have done it. But it’s been more than two years now, kids. Joe Biden has declared the pandemic over. Why is this still on? It’s an excuse for people not to show up to do their job and skip out if they have other things to do. That’s why the Senate doesn’t do it, because it’s ripe for abuse, as we see now.

Case in point: Swalwell. As Pyers observes if there’s such an “emergency” that he can’t show up, why is filing 48 proxy letters, the second-highest number? Why is he spending $250,000 on travel and car expenses? He’s going places. What’s preventing him then from getting into work?

I wrote in January about how he went to the free state of Florida when they were still imposing mask rules in California.

The article concludes:

Swalwell needs to answer up.

Seriously, it gets silly when they do things like this and it means he’s spending money while blowing off the job. They need to eliminate the proxy so we finally have people doing the job they were elected for and are paid to do back again. That has to be something the Republicans do when they take the House back so we can have some accountability again.

I need to mention that I would love to see the Republicans take the House and the Senate back and then act like Republicans. However, I am not counting on a fair election. The only recourse conservatives have is to get out the vote to a degree that cheating will be inconsequential.