It’s no secret that former Arizona state Senate President Ken Bennett (R), who is currently mulling a run for Congress, is the preferred choice of national party leaders. But does Bennett have the stomach for a gig in Washington? From the Arizona Capitol Times, via PolitickerAZ:
[Bennett] is awaiting word from Washington on ethics rules regarding his board positions and stock in 4 energy companies, one of which is developing fuel from algae. ‘If I go back there and every time the question of energy comes up, Ken Bennett’s got to sit on his hands and keep his mouth closed, then what am I doing?’ he told our reporter this morning. ‘I might as well stay here and make fuel out of algae . . . ‘That stock is my investment for my family,’ he said, adding that early indications are he would have to resign from the boards of those companies.
‘But [even] if I [could] keep those investments, I can’t vote on anything related to energy. It’s unfortunate. Congress was originally intended to be a part-time job where real people left the real world for a few months a year, went back and did what they did and went back and lived in the real world like everybody else. Now, we’re to the point where you really have to give up almost everything else to get back there and do it.’
Doesn’t exactly sound like a candidate with much fire in his belly to me.
Congress used to convene in December of odd numbered years. Probably because it took awhile to get to DC from some states.
And then they kept convening in December until the 1930s.
But there’s not really such a thing as a part-time Congress when we have full-time concerns and when we’re a superpower.