Some More News - Some More News: What Does Congress Even Do All Day?

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

Hi. On today's episode of Some More News, we look at what those clowns in Congress actually do all day while they're not legislating.Hosted by Cody JohnstonExecutive Producer - Katy StollDirected by Will GordhWritten by Amadnda ScherkerEdited by John ConwayProduced by Jonathan HarrisPost-Production Supervisor - John ConwayResearcher - Marco Siler-GonzalesGraphics by Clint DeNiscoHead Writer - David Christopher BellPATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/join#Congress #Senate #houseofrepresentativesElevate your summer bedding. Go to https://quince.com/somemorenews for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.If you’re 21 or older, go to https://indacloud.co and use code SMN for 30% off the entire month.This year, skip breaking a sweat AND breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at https://mintmobile.com/morenews – Upfront payment of $45 required (equivalent to $15/mo.). Limited time new customer offer for first 3 months only. Speeds may slow above 50GB on Unlimited plan. Taxes & fees extra. See MINT MOBILE for details.Pluto TV. Stream Now. Pay Never.Chapters:0:00 - Introduction3:44 - Congress People: Do They, Uh, Do Stuff?17:32 - Fundraising: It’s What Congress Does24:46 - How SuperPACs Made Everything Worse29:22 - Congress Doesn’t Even Read Bills Anymore33:37 - Insider Trading: The Other Thing Congress Does!41:07 - Why Is Congress Like This? It’s Newt52:54 - Cody Fixes Congress... For Good!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Midterms are coming. Yep. Like a salty line storm rolling over them waves. Feel it all me neb no different than a sorter's thumb. Also, hi, I think I might have a concussion. Twanged me ankle on a halliard and went topsy on the companion way. You know how it goes. Can't see out of one eye. Like and subscribe to this channel so I can get a new eye or an eye patch, whichever comes first.

Probably an eye patch actually. You know what? Because, hair! Some news? That news, I said, about how the midterms are coming up and we're all extremely tense about it because of all the bad people and the question of whether or not those bad people will be allowed to continue to help do the bad things. But also, interesting detail about this election. More of our beloved elected representatives are electing to not be re-elected and are voluntarily leaving office. These fancy suits are fleeing their hallowed chambers like Lindsey Graham escaping his flesh prison.

All because apparently, our legislature has a vibe problem? I think it's well understood by most Americans that Congress is broken. That Congress is deeply dysfunctional. People are being killed in the United States of America, and they're being killed by agents of our government, and we have not talked about it on the House floor. What is wrong with this Congress? Right. Have you heard about those clowns,

clowns in Congress, except arg some marnars. We can't even really call them clowns anymore, because clowns are at least happy, I think. I mean, you can't really tell what a clown is thinking. What with those vacant shark eyes? Like a doll's eyes. Like an, ugh. But Axios reports that these suited political perverts

are quote, so miserable that the traditional I'm sad to leave has now become not a hard choice to retire. shame. Those poor folks in Congress need a morale boost. Perhaps once that happens, they will do something. Or maybe, hey, maybe this change is actually good, because traditionally we've had the opposite problem, right? The average House rep spends nearly nine years in office and the average senator 11 years. But of course, many, it seems, have been staying until the grave. And in fact, one DC pharmacist had claimed back in 2017 that they were filling multiple Alzheimer's prescriptions for Congress people. I mean, Exhibit Mitch. Is he dead yet? It'll happen, you'll see. Maybe now.

Point is, they're not just old, but miserable too. Old sad crabbers haunting the halls of Congress. And perhaps that helps explain why our modern Congress is wildly unproductive, because it's super, is. The amount of legislation they have passed or agreed upon has been steadily going downward, from nearly 400 pieces of legislation from our 117th Congress to 315 from our 118th Congress, and now only 139 pieces of legislation from our current Congress. Meanwhile, as of the writing of this video, our lovely legislature had failed to pass a single one of the 12 expected discretionary appropriations bills for 20. And now it's the midterms and they're all asking us for a a really long and early vacation and

B a job and perhaps since we're the people hiring them we need to take a step back and ask a very simple question Congress people do they do stuff? It's a fair question like yes, please be sure to vote in this midterm election and we will of course be releasing a video about that midterm election and the importance of voting in it. Go out to your dark polling van and pull the voting rope that they drape through the hole. It's important. Steve the polling van juggler told me so, and he is... Well, he's a character. But it's also important to understand exactly what the job is and how that job should be, perhaps, changed.

Or maybe you watching this are running for Congress and want to know the perks. We got that too. Thanks for watching. you posh cracker. So for starters, let's talk salad, the Green Valley, that sweet intern bribing wad. There's your base salary of $174,000, peaking at just under $225,000 if your speaker. Pile on your gold-level health insurance with three-quarters of your premiums covered by generous taxpayers, who also spend millions subsidizing your access to on-site primary medical care and child care so that you can be in the best headspace to not vote on any bills, I guess.

And if you can just do that for five years without dying of old age, you will automatically qualify for a permanent pension once you hit 62. Most Congress people clearing out their offices this year will be coasting off this sweet deal, which also costs Americans tens of millions of dollars a year on top of regular Social Security benefits. You can also keep those congressional glutes swole with a membership at the hidden congressional gym complete with a sauna, steam room, swimming pool, and paddle ball for just 25 bucks a month. 25 bucks? A bunch of suckers. Planet Fitness is only 15. So that's, you save, save 10 bucks. You also get free parking in DC and are even exempt from parking tickets while on official

business. Because they're just, they're just so busy, you know? They're like law cops. You got to run in to do all that stuff that they aren't doing. Or skip the car entirely and travel from your your office to Congress on a private underground subway, which doubles as a way to get sweet internet points. So cool and relatable. It's like one of those Elon tunnels, but somehow dorkier. So that's the rundown of what you officially get when you're in Congress. And now I know what you're thinking.

Pitiful! That's peasant wages and perks. I spit on those. Put-Tui. Well, don't worry, because being a congressperson also gets you allowances. Every House member officially gets approximately $2 million per year for office expenses, while every senator gets between 3 to 5 million. In total, Senate spending on their overall operations is hastily on the rise,

swelling to $1.5 billion a year. Those expenses included lots of employees and a dedicated Senate religious chaplain with his own chief of staff and communications team, because that's necessary to communicate with God, I assume. They also employ picture framers, wellness resource staff, barbers, furniture artisans, and more. That more being millions of dollars spent by senators and their high-level staff on things like meals and travel, likely including first-class seats, which are paid for with private cards rather than official government credit cards, which allow for rather conveniently opaque reimbursements.

All these expenses, by the way, are then published in these massive and often unsearchable PDF files. Because, of course, that's another somewhat unofficial perk. The complete lack of transparency in how they spend their... Sorry, how they spend our money. Remember how Congress used to pass laws? Well, it turns out they can pass laws that specifically benefit them and nobody else,

For example, back in 1966, Congress made sure the Freedom of Information Act only applied to federal agencies with the legal definition of agency explicitly excluding Congress. So reporters can FOIA, the FBI, EPA, or Department of Transportation, but not them. Of course not them, those sneaky little olds, well played, olds. Because every job, of course, has those extra perks. If you work in an aquarium, you get free concession. and maybe a penguin if you're sneaky about it. And if you work in Congress, you get free a lot of things. One of the most notable being the free vacations.

From 2012 to 2024, House reps alone enjoyed over 17,000 trips entirely paid for by private organizations like the Aspen Institute and the Heritage Foundation. That included retreats on Lake Como and stays in five-star Tokyo hotels. Though they legally can't take trips courtesy of lobbyists, you know. You freaking know, they found a loophole, specifically creating a non-profit organization that these private groups can then donate to, and then that nonprofit pays for the fancy trips. Their favorite funder, the Congressional Institute, is funded by multi-million dollar annual dues from special interest groups like the Business Roundtable.

Okay, King Arthur. And the American Hospital Association. Okay, Dr. Arthur. While nearly all of its board members are lobbyists. Big businessmen pay big business money to attend Congressional Institute events in fancy locales and mingle with Congresspeople, who certainly go home and treat those guys just like any other constituents, right? Man, my parents were right. I picked the wrong job and should stop stealing their dinnerware.

Half right. Half right, good point. So anyway, a lot of money and perks. But of course, they're making laws and junk and stuff. It makes sense that they'd have their own subway system and gym and travel money when these guys are practically living out of their offices, right? That's what's happening?

It's the opposite, isn't it? It's the opposite. Because Congress is in session less than half of the year, which you might observe is half the amount of work most of us do for way less money. To be fair, they are expected to do other work during the time they are not in session. Like all those town halls they also aren't doing. It's funny, you know, because some of these people have introduced legislation against people working from home.

Other people, of course, not them. They need time with their families, which are more important than your idiot family, obviously. On those weeks, when they're actually in session, their schedule is pretty reliable. They fly into DC on Monday, vote in the evening, and fly back late on Thursday, leaving time for about three days of work in our nation's capital. Here's a Republican congressman and featured Cohen Brothers extra Tim Burchett breaking it down last October when he was asked about the government shutdown. You know, we roll out of here, we set a meeting for 10 o'clock,

and then we cater in a hearty lunch at taxpayer expense, and then we lead by 2 o'clock, and we walk out with our Brooks Brothers soup, you know, unbuttoned and our jacket thrown over our shoulder and our ties undone and we say to America, we've been working hard. Well, you know what? That's an insult to hardworking Americans everywhere from the north to the south. America isn't buying that anymore. Good point about how Congress does nothing from a guy who said Congress can't do anything about school shootings. Also, he got Salvia banned in Tennessee? How dare he? Everyone should have the right to feel extremely weird and gross for exactly three minutes. Also, he revealed that the government has all this terrifying

information about aliens that would keep us up at night. But then he just stopped talking about it. Buddy, what's up with the aliens? Okay, so it seems like Congress people, despite getting paid a lot, don't actually work much. Like, assuming that half the year is actually half the year and they are working 40 hours a week and the weeks they are working, which they aren't, but assuming that, that's like 160 bucks an hour. Just pointing that out because, you know, they haven't raised the federal minimum wage in nearly two decades. And a person making minimum wage would have to work over 20 hours just to make what they make in one hour. Math is fun. But to be fair and balanced, no it isn't. So yeah, not looking great so far. Seems like there's a need for a reform or two.

But maybe once we look at what they actually do, it might not be so bad. After all, astronauts don't spend that much time in space, and we love those diaper-wearing nerds. So hey, hi, hello, how's it going? Let's go to break. And after the break, we will finally try to figure out what Congress people do, you know, when they're working, which is not often, but ads first.

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We're back. We're big. We're beautiful. We're a bill. We have a lot of dinnerware for sale on Etsy. We also have a concussion that makes us talk like an old seafarer. At least that was the bit we started with but abandoned pretty quickly. We outlined all the killer perks you get for being a Congress person and now it's time to ask the question.

In the limited time that Congress people work, what do they do? Surely they must do something, anything that warrants the high pay and endless perks. Well, it turns out that about 40% of their work week is used for fundraising at the demand of party bosses. Right. Neat. I guess they're really hurting for money. See, it turns out that even if you've just been elected, staying elected quickly becomes

an immediate priority. After all, if you're in the House, your term is only two years. Election season has basically started already. Congress is ultimately a permanent telethon that occasionally passes laws with. there's time. And it's a griff that can last about as long as they want. In recent years, incumbent candidates, assuming they run, won re-election 95% of the time last election cycle. That's partly because, thanks to the magic of gerrymandering, only about 10% of Congresspeople come from actually competitive districts. But if that's the case, why raise money at all?

Gambling debts? Probably. But it turns out that they aren't just raising money for themselves, but rather their parties campaign committee, which then uses that money to fund colleagues who are in danger of losing an election. After all, since we only have two parties, there really isn't room for individualism within those two parties when the singular goal is to have a majority.

It's more like body snatcher rules, where they all work as a singular blob trying to absorb the most space, which of course means that they have to spend as much, if not more, time on maintaining that space instead of actually doing stuff with the power they have. Really makes you think that we should perhaps have more than just the two parties in power, but whatever. That would be a lot of work. You'd have to put out a lot of new chairs, that's for sure.

This is all to say that various congresspeople have an attribute that is largely unseen by the average citizen. An ability to fundraise for the larger party, a talent that is expected of them, from the start. It's basically in the employee manuals they get. And just like a school fundraiser, there are prizes for people who bring in the most cash, specifically the promise of more power. Also a magic school bus sticker pack. For example, the Freedom Caucus put out a 52-page guide for new Republican Congress people on what to expect in their time on the hill, which included a helpful reality check section that included, quote, expectations your committee assignments will be determined by your life experience prior to being elected.

And then the reality that, quote, committee assignments are based on perceived loyalty to party leadership and whether you agree to meet a fundraising quota. Everything else is secondary. The manual adds that there are three tiers based on fundraising potential. Quote, the Committee on Ways and Means is considered Tier A due to its power jurisdiction over tax policy and the resulting contributions from lobbyists. The Armed Services Committee, though, is considered a B Committee. The Committee on Ethics, which has almost no fundraising potential, is considered less lucrative by the party and labeled a C Committee.

If a member neglects their dues or is perceived to be likely to neglect their dues, it will be reflected in your committee assignments. You hear that, newbie? If you don't make us enough money, we're gonna stick you with the shitty. useless, poor person committee on ethics. And don't go screaming at only the Republicans, at least not about this, although go ahead, I don't care, they suck.

Because the woke Democrats, where there's a B in there, by the way, most people don't know this, but there's a B in dumb. I knew it, but most people didn't. And now they do, thanks to me. Anyway, here's a document leaked from the Democrats in 2023 that explains just how very literally fundraising contributes to well, whether you have some or none of the power on your side of the aisle.

Democrats on major committees are expected to pay hundreds of thousands in dues and fundraising goals to the party's campaign committee. For party leaders, those numbers reach the millions. Democrats also offer non-monetary points for fundraising efforts like making a media appearance, hosting a phone bank or organizing a donor event, a concession made to their black caucus who often come from poorer districts. So they aren't, Completely money hungry, like the Republicans. Just a little money snack-ish. And it works.

The lawmakers leading the four most powerful House committees collectively gave one out of every $5 they raised back to their party. The generosity almost moves you to tears. Happy tears? Who can say? I definitely feel like I'm leaking something based on that information. Bile? Who can say? And this really explains a lot, doesn't it?

You may have stupidly thought they were in that big tit building making laws and talking about governing and stupid junk like that, but it's this instead. And you can see how this would immediately demoralize and nerf anyone who runs for office to actually make a difference. After all, if you actually cared about being on these committees, you'd think that would be a reason to run one of them. Except that's not actually the game you have to play, it seems. Instead, the entire system is built around rewarding people who bring in money or make loud media appearances instead of people with actual knowledge of an issue. And that really explains most of the politicians we're aware of today. And of course, it favors those with large networks of wealthy people, i.e., already wealthy

Congress people. Classic, love it. The pressure to fundraise is so overwhelming that over the years, party leaders have even shifted congressional schedules, shortened the legislature's work week, and made voting schedules more predictable, also members can work on their sales pitches to make money for the big field trip. Of course, keep in mind, they don't get a say about which member of their party gets this fundraising cash, and Congresspeople can only legally give a small amount of money directly

to their colleagues. So that raises not just money, but a bit of a problem too. What if you want to direct a lot of fundraising money toward a specific that you perhaps need a favor from, or maybe a bribe. Perhaps they saw you thrill-kill a lady on a cruise at one time. Well, good news, sicko, because nothing matters thanks to political action committees. Super PAC, as Ed mentioned, is a political action committee that can gather unlimited funds from individuals, corporations, unions, other organizations, other PACs to finance campaign,

independent expenditures. Super PACs are not allowed. to spend money on political parties or campaigns, but can't spend unlimited funds on other political activities like travel and events. Sweet, I love it when nothing matters. So yeah, PACs have been around for a bit. While they started as a way for businesses, unions,

and special interests to raise money for campaigns, in 1978, one crafty congressman had an idea. Start a personal leadership pack so he could make donations to whomever he wished. Today, 90% of Congress people have leadership packs, often starting them before they even get to Washington. Everyone has one. Warmbo has one.

He pays me 400 bucks every month through it, and I have no idea why. In the check margins, he just writes hair. I should really look into that. And of course, all these packs have stupid names, like Tomorrow is Meaningful Pack, or bringing Republican Excellence to town, or the Eye of the Tiger pack, Warmbo calls his building a bigger Cody pack.

And again, I should really look into that. But I like the money. See, as that news nerd in the clip said, while you can't directly spend money on political stuff, you also kind of can do that. You can really spend it any way you want. And in fact, that news clip was from a larger story about how Trump is using pack money on his legal fees.

Because of course he did that. And with leadership PACs specifically, there's really no limit to your depravity. A new report sheds light on how some politicians are using political donations to fund things which don't seem political at all, like spending millions on upscale dining and ski resorts. This kind of spending is all perfectly legal. It falls under a special type of deregulated political action committee known as a leadership pack. Hell yeah, nary a thing matters, I reiterate. Nari a thing matters when you're out there in the dirt, in the snow, it's the sea.

From earlier, whatever, a study from 2019 to 2020 found 120 congress members who had spent less than half of their money on politics. The rest went to things like hotels and resorts, airfare, some people. P-Js, probably some BJs, sports events and concerts, ski resorts, and big spending on steakhouse dinners. I mean, you're gonna need a little R&R after you've worn yourself out raising all that money in the first place. So this is what they're up to. Getting money from donors, passing that money around, having fun romps together, killing

people on boats, and doing a big competition to see who can make the most money. But listen, there's more to it than that. They also have to have a lot of meetings with donors, whom Congress people are more than three times as likely to meet with as compared to regular old constituents. Or at least they were in 2014 when this study was done, but I'm sure they've totally changed as the amount of money poured into congressional elections

increased by ungodly amounts. Ah, breaking news. It's gotten worse. I mean, as we were filming this, news broke that Susan Collins was allegedly involved in a scheme where an ex-defense contractor was given juicy contracts in exchange for campaign donations, specifically given to a Collins-A-Line super PAC, likely under the very funny fake name, Society of Young Women's Scientist and Engineers.

Scientist singular. Just the one. It's so lazy, probably because they didn't think they would get caught because nothing matters. And in fact, the FBI under Trump did drop the investigation after he fired everyone because nothing did matter. So yeah, perhaps not getting better with time now that Donald Trump and his party are in charge of everything. So, okay, we all get it. They're greedy fat cats. They're all a bunch of cartoon pigs in top hats, stirring up the dirt, always having clean shirts to play around in, etc.

So when they aren't all swimming in bathtubs filled with cash while smoking a cigar labeled American tax dollars or whatever, are they ever actually passing some goddamn bills? Well, no, as I said at the start of this, not really. I mean, according to AOC, they don't even read anything. I learned a while ago, you know, when I first got to Congress, I thought, man, people definitely study what they're talking about here. Then I got here and I realized that people don't even, a lot of my colleagues don't even read the bills that they are commenting on. Congress, really going after the Gen Z vote by not being able to read. Just kidding. We love you. You're doing great. We're just kidding. I'm not saying she's perfect. She's the one killing people on boats. But man, it must be frustrating for anyone actually trying to do their job. You're probably wondering why

they don't read bills. It's sort of a chicken or the egg situation. Except the answer to that is the egg came first because a proto chicken laid an egg that had a mutation that made it a chicken, just how evolution works. But back to the news. See, because so few bills make it to the voting stage, the only way to get almost anything put into law

is to sneak it into a must-pass bill, which is what it sounds like, a bill that is time sensitive so as to prevent a government shutdown or pay for one of the wars we're doing. But because everyone is sneaking stuff into these bills, it turns them into sprawling Frankensteinian monsters of text. And because these things are often finalized so close to voting time, it isn't even physically possible to read them. For example, in 2007, senators had 46 hours to vet a 3,417-page omnibus bill before it was called to a vote, which if you skip eating, sleeping, and fundraising, leaves you exactly 49.

seconds per page. They should have grok to it. I say that sarcastically, as if they haven't started doing that already, I'm sure they're doing that. I'm really leaking out, thinking about the grok of it all. Are you grocking in Congress, folks? Are you? But before GROC, how do they keep track of what's going into a bill?

Lobbyists, of course. They're the grok of people, because most of these sprawling bills are jam-packed with special interest provisions. Which is why over 13,000 organizations like the Chamber of Congress and General Motors spend about $4.5 billion per year lobbying for their mostly business interests. They hire professional smooth talkers who charm Congresspeople for the privilege of monitoring every line of progress in bills, collecting useful talking points and helpful data, and even testifying on bills in committees.

It's almost like they're buttering up Congresspeople in order to do their job for them. That seems very bad. Also, in recent years, there's been a rise in what scholar Amy McKay calls stealth lobbying. All the kids are doing it. I mean, they're not reading, that's for sure. It's where organizations push micro-legislation,

as in tiny provisions discreetly shoved into bills that attract no attention except to the, say, vaccine manufacturer or infection test-making company they benefit. Studying the making of the Affordable Care Act, McKay used plagiarism detecting software to see exactly which organizations influenced legislation. She found that when an organization threw a fundraiser for a senator, that senator was 3.5 times more likely to introduce an amendment to the bill requested by their gracious host. Sometimes word for word. Plagiarism, not cool. So let me just get all these garbage ducks in a trash.

They work half a year at best, they mostly fundraise for their party, and in fact, let the lobbyists dictate what goes into the bills they are voting on. And we pay them a lot, and they get a lot of perks and privileges. Kind of sounds closer to an actor or influencer or a grifter, and it still makes you wonder what they actually do with all that time. Well, there's also the side hustles. Trading on the stock market comes to mind, well with that little benefit called insider information. For example, Trades on both sides of the aisle spiked during and after private Senate COVID briefings. In 2022, at least 97 members of Congress or their spouse or child bought or sold financial assets related to the Congressperson's committee work.

In 2022, Nancy Pelosi's husband exercised potential millions of semiconductor giant invidious stock options just weeks before Congress was set to vote on whether or not to subsidize its industry. He quickly sold them at a loss after public outcry. We could probably do an entire episode just on the fact that we have, for some reason, allowed politicians and their friends and family to trade stocks and how pretty much all of them should probably go to jail. Perhaps maybe. Also, we did do that episode. Oh, and this is not the only way to make extra money.

After all, you can always write a book instead of laws. They can do that. I mean, who doesn't want to read your book? you live such an exciting life after all. That's probably why at least two dozen Congresspeople decided they had a memoir worth telling in 2024 alone. In fact, Marjorie Trader Brown, because Green turns to Brown under stress,

made more off her book than her entire congressional salary. Incidentally, I'm sure just a coincidence, those book sales are often artificially boosted by PACs who buy up huge lots of these doorstoppers to artificially land them on best sales. seller lists. Ted Cruz got caught spending his own campaign money on ads for his memoir, which is kind of like winning a tournament at your own golf club. Pax often unloaded the unwanted memoirs on supporters under the guise of donor mementos or thank you gifts. Wow, cool.

Thanks for that gift of fucking unfettered. The thrilling tale of John Federman's life. Can't wait for Ron Howard to turn it into a movie. Shill Philly elegy. So after you've passed no laws, made a bunch of money for you and your friends, gone on a bunch of vacations and written some books, perhaps you're tired of being a congressperson. Well, continued great news because if you wait one or two years, you can just become a lobbyist. Surely one of the best paid in Washington thanks to your valuable connections. You can even make like these 100 congressmen who became lobbyists for foreign countries in recent years. Or maybe don't wait at all and just join the board of a giant public company where your political capital is even more valuable and even fewer people are paying attention. So yeah, to bring it all back, those clowns in Congress indeed.

And after hearing all this, you've probably assumed that Congress wasn't designed to be this way. It would be weird if this is what the founding fathers wanted. And there's probably a point where it all fell apart. And perhaps even someone to blame for this. Like a person you can point a finger at and yell, Get them! Get them at! You know? Well, congratulations, I got a name for you,

but I'm only going to tell you after the ad break. That's how they gets you. They being me. That's how me gets you. Just watch the ads. It's almost Halloween, and you know what that means. That's right. For the ninth year in a row, I will be dressing up as the guy in the dog suit from the Shining.

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Don't mention any of the shining stuff, though. They won't know what you're talking about. Definitely don't say anything about warm. Punctuation, really. Okay. I don't know how we're going to do that. What is happening? Hey!

Pluto TV is happening. We're streaming now, not paying a copper penny. And we're going to say a fake movie with a punctuation sounding title and then a bunch of actor names with the names of punctuation in them. Not names with punctuation mind you. So like Lupidian Yongo doesn't count just because there's an apostrophe in her name. Do you see what I'm saying? I am genuinely upset but let's do it. Maybe it'll be fun. Jonathan is making me say maybe it'll be fun. Here we go on Pluto TV. You can watch my personal

favorite all-time movie SLC punctuation. Starring question Mark Ruffalo, Nicolon Kidman, semi-colon Firth, Anthony hyphens, exclamation Scarsguard, who knows which Scarsguard, that is, Philipsis Moore Hoffman, slash, like the guitarist from Guns and Roses if he was an actor. Buddy Brackett, comma, Rand Diaz, Isabelle Huperthesis, Dennis Hopperiod, Parker, Postery, Patricia R. Quote, And I think that might be it. We hit all of them. We did it all. Directed by M-Dash Shamalan. Okay, now we're done.

So go to the app and watch the movies. They have real ones with real actors and everything. They got the notebook, John Wick too. Probably been a while since you've seen Hot Fuzz. So go ahead and do that. Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never.

I'm genuinely upset. Or am I, since that's written down for me to say. Maybe I'm not. I am. That's also written for me to say. But it's true. I am. Or unless, what if not?

But I'm saying it's written down, so I am. But this is the ad lib part of the end. So maybe I really am. Or I'm just in character, the character that Jonathan wants me to play, which is an upset person about the... Yeah, Pluto TV. Did I get you? I'll do it someday.

I'll get you. You can't escape me forever. So welcome back. I freaking guess we were talking about what comes. Congress people do all day, mainly fundraise and also mainly fundraise. And here's a question. Why? Why is Congress so infuriatingly apathetic and greedy?

Did they get spirited away? Did Congress get spirited away? Do we have any data about whether or not Congress got spirited away by some kind of forlorn shadow demon wandering the empty streets of Washington? Kind of... At the end of one day's House session. Newt delivered an ideological broadside, a long list of accusations against House Democrats

for being soft on communism. No Democrat replied because the chamber was empty. A shot the C-SPAN cameras never showed. The Democrats were outraged by Newt's sneak attack. Oh, Newt. Your name is Newt. You were man of the year in 1995. Congratulations.

Are you dead? Is he dead? No, just smooth? that's fine. That's his right to be smooth and not dead. So here's the dilly. For almost 40 years

from 1955 to 1994, Democrats controlled the House of Representatives full stop. It also held onto the Senate for almost that entire time, save for one brief love affair with Reagan. Jeez. That's pretty wild to imagine, actually.

It was a time when disempowered Republican congressmen had to find ways to cooperate. Kind of makes sense why they're all so weird and spiteful these days, huh? That in the racism. But then came Newt, a guy named Newt, like the Neo for the GOP he was. He pioneered what he called an aggressive and confrontational approach to governance, which he saw more as warfare.

He's certainly not the only person who pushed partisan politics and mudslinging. I'm, you know, we did a whole Reagan series. But he certainly boosted the strategy as a path to power. I guess, more like a Trinity than a Neo. And Reagan is the Morpheus there, right? Or is the Oracle? I know the Matrix was made specifically about the Republican Revolution, but I don't know the exact comparison.

There's something... We'll not do a whole video about it. See, that's what happened next. Much like the SCA revolution, the 90s Republican Revolution would involve a lot of cheap suits and haunt us forever. To overcome decades of grand old party cockblock, Gingrich cooked up a strategy that's been described as conflict equals exposure equals power. You'll never guess which present-day politician he's written not one, not two, but three books about.

He also lit a fire under his fellow Republicans' butt by setting fundraising requirements and, for the first time, explicitly sweetening the deal with promises of influential positions in Congress. All that stuff I said before. That's all Newt, baby. Thanks, Newt. Additionally, old Newt shook things up within his own party, which he saw as having too many moderates. To push his ultra-partisan ideals, he dramatically centralized power toward the party leadership and away from congressional committees, ultimately weakening the group that had been responsible for writing legislation for most of the 20th century. This made it easy for him to threaten any Republican who didn't want to vote for his agenda.

which included neat ideas like a personal responsibility act, designed to cut the shit out of welfare, a plan to cut social spending to build more prisons, and ensuring an effective, believable, and timely death penalty. Cool. Newt. He ruined Congress, but at least his ideas were also evil. Neutually beneficial.

So yeah, the result of Newt's revolution was that average Congress people had less input on legislative, and more responsibility for raising money for their colleagues. Democrats eagerly followed suit because they also love sucking, and that's where we are now. Like, we give the GOP a lot of guff because of the stuff they do. But it's worth noting that the Democrats probably would have done this first if they had thought of it. Also, and perhaps most importantly, this was the real emergence of what scholar Francis E. Lee calls

the insecure majority, where even if your party runs Congress, you're not sure if you will in two years, because the other party is, of course, hyper-focused on taking it back from you. Everybody is so scared to lose the ball that they aren't actually doing anything with it, because the new game is simply keeping the power. And the party without the power is way less incentivized to compromise because they're just waiting for the other side to fail. In other words, congressional gridlock is the goal now. There's no downside. Even if you piss people off, you're already gerrymandered in there. Everything is simply about trying to get that power. And so, of course, our election seasons got longer

and more money was focused on campaigns, which in turn created radical candidates more aligned with their wealthy donor's interest than those of their constituents. And those radical politicians would elect more extreme leadership to run Congress, and those leaders centralized power yielded more extreme agendas while rank and file members were pushed to vote on party lines. Similarly, most voters just had to deal with this. In 2016, one study of the Senate found that it was as if legislators had been randomly assigned to voters, and that faced with two candidates they didn't like, voters were resigned to vote on the party line, even if their state's candidates seemed too extreme. Because we're all just going for the brand name now.

Coke or Pepsi, McDonald's or Burger King, Amazon or... Geez, okay, uh, Ticketmaster or... Nessly or... Capitalism, you ruined the metaphor. It's the only thing you ruined. The system is now set up so that the average congressman has very little power to affect change. House payroll data shows that Congresspeople started shifting their office resources from working on legislation to representational things like communications.

Because if you couldn't do much as a congressperson, at least you could say something. And one study found that there's a real fundraising uptick for candidates when they make TV appearances. Legislators lacking power used grandstanding and House committees, making big emotional speeches, which actually yielded electoral rewards while rarely accomplishing anything.

And this, friends and enemies, is how we have we ended up here. The failure of the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act is a pretty good example of how nothing can get done, even with a majority, because the other party is both extremist and ultra-focused on seeing you fail. Not to mention that your own party's being pulled apart by different wealthy donors. This also explains when any politician tweets out, do something after a spree shooting. To be fair in Pepsi, I should note that the House actually did pass that Floyd Act, because the House still does a decent-ish, okay if you squint, job of representing the American people. The study from 2006 to 2022 found that the House passed 87% of bills on popular issues

supported by a majority of Americans. The problem was that the Senate passed only about half, not even bothering to consider hundreds of bills, even the ones that passed unanimously in the House. That's thanks to a number of really boring policies like the fifth. filibuster, shout out to Mitch, RIP probably, which requires most bills to have the support of 60 senators, a supermajority neither party has come close to in years. The use of the filibuster has exploded in the past few decades. This makes a lot of the House actions also performative since they know these bills are doomed. As Senator Olympia Snow wrote, rather than putting forward a plausible, realistic solution to a problem, members on both sides offer legislation that is designed to make a

political statement. Specifically, the bill or amendment is drafted to make the opposing side look bad on an issue and it is not intended to ever actually pass. For example, if you want to pretend to care about lawmakers trading stocks, you'd introduce a bill banning it, but you'd call that bill the Pelosi Act. It gets you points, it doesn't get passed. It kind of explains why it's. feels like both parties seem more comfortable as the minority, because at least people don't get mad when nothing gets done. Easier fundraising, too. We'll make sure to get things done once we get back into power, promise. This also explains why we've been ping ponging the majority party much more frequently lately, because the majority party never does anything either, and it very much explains

why the country would turn toward a fascist type who proudly ignores the laws in order to get things done, even if those things are horrifying. See, because that's the next logical step. As Congresspeople became powerless, everyone started looking to the president to get anything done. As scholar Nami Rao explains, it can be more strategic to trade real, formal, lawmaking power for functional influence over administration.

A former Bush White House staffer recalls that Congresspeople frequently requested the president make executive orders for popular agenda items, rather than trying to do it themselves. Then they could claim they got the president to act without having to do the busy work of pushing something through Congress. Added bonus, all the blame for a policy that goes wrong falls on the president.

Basically, as Congress became less effective, its members realized it was advantageous to let the president take the reins and that they could benefit from that politically. See, ironically, some of the constitutional framers were actually worried about congressional overreaching, But those wigged freaks absolutely didn't anticipate what would happen if Congress just like Gave up which is exactly what is happening now at best they are hype men for the party leaders at worst

They're all just kind of sitting around meanwhile the rest of the federal government is firing on all eight Trump signed 225 executive orders in 2025 alone more than Biden did in his entire presidency and Meanwhile, House Republicans shamelessly admit that their entire lawmaking process is at the behest of the president and even passed a bill that functionally gave him the power of the purse. And when he perhaps, arguably, maybe overstepped his executive authority by, oh gosh, I don't know, going to war without congressional approval, our reps sat on their hands and watched like he's a bank robber who told them to count down from one billion. It sucks. We all hate it. Every one of us. According to one 2013 poll, we literally like dog shit more than Congress.

But we can actually fix it, you know? There is a way. And I will explain it now in a section called Cody fixes Congress for good. Well, that sounds like a threat. Let's try something else. Something to convey that I'm disrupting the system in a big, dramatic way. Cody blows up Congress. Okay, you know that's worse. You know that. I'm not... I want to help them in like a way that's like from a place of love. No violence.

Change through love. Cody blows Congress. That'll have to work. The titles, they're so expensive. So how do we blow, sorry, fix Congress. How do we properly reform these lazy money goblins? For starters, we should record screen. Pay them more.

Gwa? A lot more. Hear me out. That's just step one. We pay them more for the job they should be doing. Then we ban every other source of income for a sitting congressperson. Under penalty of death? Not that, but something really harsh.

Jail, for sure. That's the deal we should make. No stock trading, obviously, no leadership packs, no congressional profiteering in any way. They shouldn't even be allowed to write. a book. Heck, they shouldn't get to buy scratch tickets in case they win. Would that infringe on their freedoms? Yes. Yes, it would. They would technically have less freedom than the rest of us. And in exchange, we pay them more and they make laws for us. Additionally, we should have better transparency about how Congresspeople spend their money, some kind

of Freedom of Information Act that actually applies to them. if we pay them more, then they sure is shit won't use our tax dollars on fancy resorts anymore. They should also have bigger teams of people also paid more, with mandatory positions focused on legislation rather than endless PR campaigns. Because the problem as it stands now is that they don't really work for us. Despite our tax dollars contributing $5.23 trillion to the government, we are somehow not the high rollers here.

It's obviously easier to turn to individual donors with specific special interests than try and answer to every single constituent, especially when those donors give them far more money than their salary. So we have to change that balance. The same way unions created collective bargaining, we too have to regain our power as a group. Which yes, would be hard. We'd probably have to go outside. But some people are already on the right track.

In fact, one simple solution. to help our representatives be more representative, doesn't even have anything to do with money, which we absolutely should get out of politics and campaigning. But we just need more representatives. Since 1929, the size of Congress has been capped at 435 seats. The population tripled since then, meaning that some members of Congress represent like 800,000 people,

which is approximately one-fifth of the entire U.S. population, when the Constitution was ratified. No wonder these lays-abouts don't want to do any work. That's too many people to represent. There's actually an org called Project No Cap trying to help with this issue if that interests you. But what of the money? Well, one Michigan House member named Tom Barrett

has sponsored or co-sponsored five bills, including a constitutional campaign finance reform amendment, which would give Congress and states the rights to put caps on corporate spending in elections. He also proposed a campaign accountability and parity act to cap congressional campaign spending from being any higher than congressional allowance. Because Congresspeople shouldn't spend more

on getting into Congress than they spend actually serving in Congress. He also wants to require PACs to raise at least half their money in the state where they're spending it, so your congressperson actually represents you and your neighbors and fellow state livers, as well as a law to prevent foreign money from infiltrating congressional elections. This all seems like a promising start. Thank you, Comrade Tom Barrett, a man I am comedically assuming is a Democrat.

Under President Trump, if you worked hard, you would have some money left over at the end of the month. But now, under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, you have too much month left at the end of your money. Oh, that's a shame. The hair, I mean. But yeah, it seems like something that both parties hate, After all, it affects any politician who wants to do change. Even if that change is terrible, they can't even do the terrible stuff. So let's change this. Let's pay them more in exchange for huge restrictions.

They should live like monks. And then we'll give them money. And they can enjoy the money and go nuts once they're done making laws. Also, let's limit campaign periods, maybe to a single month like the UK Parliament. Also, 83% of Americans support. term limits for Congress people. So let's look into that. I mean there are pros and cons for that, but almost everyone wants it. Ted Cruz introduces an amendment for this every couple years when he needs attention, and so one day, maybe someone other than Ted Cruz will introduce a

similar amendment that limits the terms of all Congress people, unlike Ted Cruz's stupid amendment, which would let people like him serve for two more full terms once the amendment goes into effect. And we should probably get rid of the filibuster so we can at least give Congress a shot at making legislation like it used to. It was just a convention accidentally invented by the guy who killed Alexander Hamilton anyway.

Oh, also, let's bring back dueling too, but only for politicians. How fun would that be? No guns, slappers only. God, brings me back to when my mates and I used to crush each other's barnacles while drinking me grog against the gunwale. Arg, batten down the, that's the video, all right, thanks.

I did say this at the beginning of the video, but still vote. Like obviously, midterms coming up, it's very important. You vote in the midterms, vote for these fucking people in the midterms because of all the reasons that we're gonna explain in other videos and the reasons that you know, you know this. But everything we said in this video is true.

And in addition to that, go out and vote, okay? Okay. Disclaimer. Good. We're good. Okay. Argue. As I said, vote still.

Also, vote for us by liking and subscribing to the channel and leaving a comment that's nice that says, I'm still voting. We got a podcast called Even More News. You can listen to it twice a week on this channel or the podcast store. You can listen to this. Some More News. Pick it up at the podcast store. We've got a Patreon.com slash some more news.

news. Pick it up online. Go there if you want and vote for us and we got merch with stuff on it. So you can't tell us that we don't have a merch store, which you're always trying to say to us. Okay. Some mysteries have haunted us for centuries. Others are unfolding right now. This is history's Greatest Mysteries, a History Channel original podcast brought to you by Rewind Studios. Every episode dives into one of the world's greatest enigmas, the vanishings, the myths, the lost relics, and the unexplained. Follow History's Greatest Mysteries, available now wherever you listen to podcasts.