Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Congress Doesn’t Function

Rep. Steven LaTourette said Tuesday that he was leaving a Congress that has become too polarized to function, a far cry from the institution in which he spent the past 18 years.
In a characteristically caustic speech abruptly announcing he would not seek a 10th term, the dry-witted Ohio Republican blasted the partisan rancor and gridlock that has enveloped the 112th Congress, joining the handful of Members who have called it quits this year for the same stated reason. Simply put, there is no place for moderates like him in the House anymore, he said.
“The change that I’ve noticed is, it used to be there was Election Day and then there was governance. You fight like cats and dogs on election time and then you govern,” LaTourette said in a press conference at his district office in Painesville. Not so now, he said: “For a long time now, words like compromise have been considered to be dirty words. And there are people on the right and the left who think that if you compromise you’re a coward, you’re a facilitator, you’re an appeaser.”

Read more: http://www.rollcall.com/issues/58_15/Steven-LaTourette-Says-Congress-Does-Not-Function-216623-1.html?pos=htmbtxt

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