Hello?

[rhu]

The press coverage of the Congressional impasse seemed to say that among the reasons for the delay in coming to a resolution was Rosh Hashanah.

That ought to be ridiculous. There's no reason why Jewish Members of Congress couldn't arrange for a vatikin service at sunrise, be done by 9:30am, and get to work.

Comments

[fauxklore]

There's no reason to believe that the staffs of the various congresscritters (and the professional staff of the Finance committees) weren't working while the House recessed.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

In which case the media shouldn't have claimed that the delay was caused by Rosh Hashanah.

[fauxklore]

And, in fact, the handful of media outlets that actually have a clue about how Washington works didn't claim that.

Actual voting was, of course, delayed, but that is a very small part of what goes into making laws.

It is, by the way, typical for there to be several days between a draft bill being released (i.e. by the relevant committee) and the actual floor vote on it. Probably a week on average, though it can happen faster if there is a recess approaching.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I saw it in both the Times and the Journal. (Of course, they may not have a clue about how Washington works. :-)

[fauxklore]

The WSJ used to be fairly reliable, but now that Rupert Murdoch owns them I have my doubts. I have other reasons to believe the NY Times is clueless about Washington.

In general, I think the Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor are usually more clueful about basic civics.

[sethg]

These are the same news outlets whose announcers would get fired if they said "the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 20 points today for reasons which are almost indistinguishable from random noise". So what did you expect? Analysis? Journalism?

It's easier to just blame the Jews. :-/

[autotruezone.livejournal.com]

I would think there might be a fair likelihood that the percentage of Jews among congressional staffers might be higher than the percentage of Jews among members of Congress. Although I don't know if anyone keeps stats on such things.

[fauxklore]

I suspect the opposite.

It's easy to get information about the number of Jews in Congress. There are 13 Jewish senators and 30 Jewish representatives. Which is 13% of the Senate and just under 7% of the House. Info on religion is included in the profiles in the Congressional Handbook, by the way. One of the Senate Jews, Chuck Schumer, is on the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Jews on the House Committee on Financial Services are Barney Frank, Brad Sherman, Ron Klein, Paul Hodes and Gary Ackerman, (By the way, looking up this info was the first clue I had as to my representative's religion;)

I don't know of a source for such info for staffers, but I suspect their demographics more closely mirror the demographics of the U.S., in general. None of the professional staffers I know are Jewish, but that doesn't particularly mean anything since, with the exception of somebody I've met at alumni events, I only know staffers who work on particular types of issues.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Gee... Barney Frank is my Representative, and Gary Ackerman is my parents'.