Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives
“House of Representatives CHAPTER TENMoment of SilenceEach day the House is in session begins with a period known as “morning hour debate.” The phrase is not to be taken literally, since the period sometimes begins at noon, sometimes lasts less than an hour, and rarely involves actual debate. It has evolved, in any event, into a peculiarly postmodern custom of the lower body. Morning hour entails a procession of House members standing in the well of the chamber and for five minutes passionately orating to an audience of virtually zero (though really to a C-SPAN television audience, which might number just slightly more than zero at that hour) on topics of almost absurd boundlessness. The majority of the House’s 435 members do not bother with morning hour. They contend that there are far better ways to spend the first hours of an already overscheduled day than futilely exercising one’s lungs. But there are others who simply cannot turn down a chance to speak to a (likely sparse) nationa...l audience, uninterrupted and unedited, for five full minutes.MoreLess
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