A new proposal by a group of “progressive” legislative staff demanding a 32-hour week for Congress drew some interesting messages on Twitter: “LOL read the chamber guys” and “ Why not be strong and ask for a 0-hour work year? ” And those were only the reactions from Democrats.
The notice was officially withdrawn the day after the staff released it to nonpartisan criticism, but it ’s still for analyzing the proposal’s roots. This event reveals but afterwards how leftist leaders live in their own balloon and don’t know the “real world ” around them. It reinforces November’s election results and why Democrats face major problems with working-class citizens as the group gets further and further out of reach.
More and Less Than Matches the Vision
On the one hand, the text the Congressional Progressive Staff Association sent to group leaders in the House and Senate seems more benign than the articles, and vitriol, it generated. The organization asked for Washington-based staff to work fewer hours when Congress is in recess, and for constituency-based staff to work fewer time when members of Congress are in Washington.
I won’t talk for district practices, but as a practical matter, some, if not most, Washington workplaces currently operate on these concepts. Some legislative workers make themselves limited when Congress is out of treatment. Even before pandemic-era work-from-home patterns, Capitol Hill office buildings often resembled spirit cities during recess times. While all employees aren’t so lucky, most of the agencies I worked for on the Hill were frequently flexible about working hours and even let me work from home as I recovered following surgery.
On the other hand, it takes a particular degree of chutzpah to matter demands to one’s superiors about how a parliamentary office may move — especially when those superiors, unlike staff, have the blessing of voters in their constituencies. As one of my bosses used to show me ( and not in a hostile manner ), “If you don’t like the working conditions, don’t taking the test. ” Heck, if workers don’t like the way their business is run, they have another opportunity beyond just going abroad: They can put their money where their mouth is and run for Congress themselves.
Therein lies the problem for the leftist staffers: They believe they have a God-given right to a 32-hour workweek, just like they believe they have a right to attend their “dream college ” free of charge, and so many other things besides. Being coddled within left-wing institutions, with their education paid for by Joe Biden’s student “loan forgiveness, ” allows them to believe in and demand “rights ” that are not theirs to ask for. For a group of individuals that likes to talk about “checking one’s privilege, ” they should look in the mirror.
Out-of-Touch Elites
That gets to the other point Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N. Y. , made in the tweet mockingly referring to a zero-hour workweek: “ I wonder how blue-collar Americans would feel about white-collar workers demanding a 32-hour work week. ” He continued that point in a follow-up tweet where he asked a similar question: “ Why would you want to work less than the very working people who elected your employers? ”
Torres ’ questions — and the fact that he had to ask them publicly — get to the heart of one of his party ’s political problems. Very few Democrat leaders think about or prioritize the needs of the working class because they are so removed from them.
Think about it: Even the most junior staff assistant in a Washington, D. C. , congressional office likely has a college education — still the exception, not the norm, among the American people as a whole. They sit in climate-controlled comfort at a desk all day — again, not the norm for many Americans. And if you asked them about the difference between people who shower in the morning compared to people who shower in the evening, they would probably look at you like you were from Mars.
Perhaps the congressional staffers demanding a 32-hour week should get it — performing manual labor on a factory floor, working as an overnight janitor, or milking cows at 5 a. m. After a 32-hour week performing those tasks, I’m guessing they would prefer 64 hours behind a desk in an air-conditioned office. They might also spend less time asking for things they have no right to demand and more time focusing on the needs of people who have spent the past four years struggling to make ends meet.
