Sunday Memes–the Uncle Bosey edition

The United States Congress is broken.

So said L.F. Payne, a Virginia Democrat who represented Virginia’s 5th Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1988 to 1997, during a special visit to Charlottesville Friday.

“In the last Congress, I think there were over 500 pieces of legislation that were passed,” Payne said, adding that’s on track with recent history. “This Congress by comparison, now three-fourths of the way through, has passed 69 pieces of legislation. So it is clearly by many measurements dysfunctional.”

Now serving as president of Former Members of Congress, or FMC, a bipartisan nonprofit group, part of Payne’s job is to help remedy that dysfunction. But it’s a tall order.

Payne attributed some of that to Republican leadership, and offered former Rep. Barbara Comstock to explain.

“An easy question,” the Republican, who represented Virginia’s 10th Congressional District from 2015 to 2019, joked.

“I think to have civility and to have things work, you have to have character,” she said. “Character counts and every once in a while, it only takes a few people. There’s not a majority of people with character in that Republican Congress right now, I can assure you.”
Comstock and Payne said they believe that there is bipartisan support on a number of issues, such as aid for a war-torn Ukraine, and that it’s been a minority of Republicans who have kept Congress from taking action. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Comstock said, is being “held hostage by a few people.”
She did not mince words about who those people are.

Comstock singled out Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom she called a “moron” and an “embarrassment.” She faulted the media for focusing on figures such as Greene instead of those who have a track record of policy-making.

“Then the next idiot knows, ‘Great, I’ll get coverage. I can raise money if I say something even more stupid than what Marjorie said.’ Unfortunately, that’s what’s rewarded in the press,” Comstock said.