WASHINGTON, D.C. — It’s been over seven weeks since both chambers of Congress were here in Washington together, thanks to the coronavirus.
- U.S. Senate set to return to D.C. Monday; U.S. House staying home
- Sen. Rob Portman wants Congress to work remotely during a crisis
- Rep. Jim Jordan says it’s a “terrible concept”
On Thursday, local officials announced 19 people had died from the virus in the District of Columbia in the last 24 hours — the deadliest day yet.
Two days prior, it was announced by House leadership that “in continued consultation with Members and the House Attending Physician,” the House would stay home past its original May 4 return date.
But the Senate is set to come back on Monday, despite calls for Congress to work remotely in times of crisis from members like Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman, who has become a leading voice on the matter.
“If we can’t go to Washington safely, which is what the public health people are saying right now, because you’d have 535 people going from all over the country and traveling on airplanes and so on, then we should be able to do our work remotely,” Portman said in a phone interview on April 22.
Earlier this week, he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times pushing the bipartisan resolution he has introduced that would allow for remote voting.
And as chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Portman held a remote hearing on Thursday to discuss the very topic of whether Congress can operate remotely when needed.
His Democratic counterpart, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, said he generally has mixed feelings about lawmakers working from home, but he thinks it needs to happen during this pandemic.
“It’s also good modeling,” Brown said in a video conference interview last week. “If we’re all in the same place doing things, but we’re telling the public you can’t, that rings of hypocrisy and stupidity, and we shouldn’t play that game.”
Earlier this week, Brown wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) that says the Senate should not return to D.C. unless “all Senate and Capitol Complex workers” — including Capitol Police and cafeteria staff — “have the protections they need to stay safe on the job,” like personal protective equipment (PPE) and paid leave.
As I reported back in late March, the constitution doesn’t ban Congress from working remotely, but the rules were written in a way that imply members should be here to do their job. So a vote would have to take place in order to change them.
When the House came back to D.C. last week to vote on refilling the Paycheck Protection Program, some of Ohio’s members were loud and clear in saying they don’t think Congress should take up working remotely.
“Congress urgently needs to lead by example and get into full session, safely, but fully functional,” Representative Warren Davidson (R, 8th Congressional District) said from the House floor.
Davidson had joined a few other House Republicans in coming back to Washington early in an effort to show that some members want Congress to reconvene.
And fellow Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan (R, 4th Congressional District) told me this when I brought up Portman’s proposed resolution.
“I appreciate Senator Portman,” Jordan said. “He’s a good man, a good senator. But I just totally disagree. There is no way we want to operate remotely… You’ve got to be able to negotiate, debate, and work. That’s how a Congress works, and that can’t happen in a remote format. There’s just not the same dynamic in play. So I am totally against that. I think that is a terrible concept. We should be here doing our jobs.”
I reached out to McConnell’s office to ask for his response to Brown’s letter, but haven’t heard back.