I always tell myself that I don't want to be the old curmudgeon up in the Press Gallery of the Capitol who sits there and scoffs at the current crop of members of Congress and talks loudly about 'the good ole days' in the House and Senate. But I sort of feel like that of late as I watch lawmakers in recent months.
It just seems like the Congress could work a bit harder. Or a lot harder. Or at least fake it a little better.
Spare me your finger pointing and blame game about who is blocking what bill and who is holding votes for political purposes.
The Congress has simply evolved into a different animal than the one I grew up with and came of age with.
You know - the good ole days.
Let's take the summer for example.
July was always a rough month - in the old days. The House and Senate would be working late several nights each week on annual spending bills and other major legislation.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were often long days, followed by an early start on Friday. It didn't leave much time for journalistic endeavors like drinking and chasing girls.
I remember how I had figured it out down to the minute, that I could run out of the door on the Senate side of the Capitol at 11:48 p.m. and still make the last subway train around midnight at the train station down the street.
By the time the August Recess rolled around, you needed the month off, whether you were a lawmaker, staffer or reporter. Sometimes the Senate would even have to work into the first Saturday in August to finish a major defense policy bill before going home.
Not anymore.
I had several conversations with people this week who have been around the Capitol for many years - and we all agreed - this is not our father's Congress.
I went back to 1990 to look at this month in Congress and see what was going on 22 years ago - was it really that different?
Yes, there was something that caught my eye immediately - Senate sessions that began at 9 a.m and ended after 11 p.m., and sometimes after midnight. Often several in a week.
That was the Senate I remembered from my early days of covering Capitol Hill - lots of votes, lots of action - even if the two parties sharply disagreed on the issues at hand.
There was the Senate working each Friday - and the House, too. That doesn't happen any more - on this Friday, both houses of Congress are out.
This week the House took its first vote at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, and finished just before 1 p.m. on Thursday.
Debate this week in the House on the health care repeal bill was stretched out over two days, when it could have been condensed into just one day - easily.
House members left early Thursday afternoon knowing they didn't have to be back until next Tuesday evening - so that's basically five days out of town.
The Senate meanwhile spent yet another week slow-walking legislation and engaging in parliamentary finger-pointing on the floor.
Once again the majority tried to limit amenmdents by the minority and the minority responded by filibustering a bill.
As Senators left the floor after their final vote of the week - the first was Tuesday at 12:30 p.m., the last was just before 3 p.m. on Thursday - it had been a "week" of only a handful of votes and little in the way of accomplishment.
"We can't get anything done around here," one Senator said to me while shaking his head in disgust.
Back in July of 1990, the Senate floor was usually a blizzard of amendments and votes on everything from spending bills to measures on civil rights and more.
And the Senate did work into the first Saturday of August in 1990, approving the defense bill and a budget bill before leaving town.
It was my father's Congress.
I don't want to be the old crusty reporter who says these members of Congress can't hold a candle to lawmakers of just twenty years ago, but they could probably step it up a notch. Or two. Or maybe three.
This isn't really about partisanship - it's about something much simpler; just bringing lots of bills to the floor and voting on them. Too often it seems that a light schedule precludes action.
Sure, we had message votes back in the "good ole days." Sure, we had parliamentary games and legislative hijinx, with a dose of pure politics thrown in.
But lawmakers also seemed to do a lot of work on the floors of the House and Senate, even if both parties wanted to push each other out the window of a tall building right before an election.
When my wife worked in the Congress, she knew what night she didn't want to work in her office - that was Thursday night - because the House was always in late on a Thursday.
Not anymore.
Now the House is often long gone by the time Happy Hour rolls around on Thursday.
I'm going to keep saying it to both parties - you can't really expect to seriously tackle the nation's problems when the House and Senate are only in session a few days each week.
Now back to my perch in the Press Gallery so I can tell these kids about how it used to be in the Congress.
You know, back when we had bottles of booze in the Press Gallery.
Back when we worked all day and all night.
And we liked it.
You know, back in the good ole days.
