Is there a rule that to get something on record it must be in the form of a speech? What’s going on when a member of congress is giving a speech from the house chamber and there’s one half asleep staffer in the entire auditorium?
It gets the speech into the Congressional Record, so that it can be referred to when the member is talking to constituents (especially when campaigning).
For Senators it could be a Filibuster.
But isn’t actually speaking unnecessary for that purpose?
“Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks in the Congressional Record.”
Isaac Newton, when he was a professor, often used to lecture to an empty room. It was part of his job description that he had to give regular (I think weekly) mathematics lectures, but his material was so advanced, that few if any of the students could understand it, and, as most of them were studying to become clergy or lawyers, they did not really need higher math anyway, so very few of them ever attended his lectures. His lab assistant, Humphrey Newton (no relation) reported that “Ofttimes he did lecture to ye walls.”
On the other hand, when he was an MP, later in life, the one time he spoke in Parliament was to ask that the window be closed, because there was a draft.
It also provides video footage of him giving an important-sounding speech to the House (they don’t show the rest of the empty chamber). Hopefully that footage will be shown to his constituents on the local evening news or in campaign ads. And, hopefully, he will not say something incredibly stupid that will be shown on the comedy shows and in his opponents’ campaign ads.
Ah, the good old days. Now they just file a statement of intent to filibuster, the Senate takes a cloture vote, and everyone says “Don’t bother. You win. Let’s move on to something else.” Yes, occasionally a nostalgia-buff like Rand Paul will actually filibuster, but hardly ever.
How much of this talking to a seemingly empty room is done for C-span?
“Delivered on the Floor” sounds much more impressive than “handed to the Recorder for inclusion in the Record”.
Sometime I wonder what it would have been like to have simply everything phrased as a speech.
The Gettysburg address was an afterthought - the primary speaker that day was someone who spoke for 2 HOURS. Straight. The golden age of Oratory.
Somehow a 5 second sound bite seems do hollow.
Yes, this is what I think - when Ted Cruz was blathering for all those hours, the camera was fixed on him and his maunderings, but I wanted it to be turned around to show who was actually there watching him. Is this what we pay our representatives to do?
Just imagine how much damage they’d do if they were actually doing things. Let them talk to empty rooms, it’s cute and it keeps them out of trouble.
Well, from my days as an Senate Intern, I can add that the audio ( and maybe video now too) is broadcast throughout the Senate Office Buildings, so other members of the Senate *could *be listening to the speech even if the Chamber is empty.
I hope they can turn that feed off. Otherwise the Senate Office Buildings sound like some level of Purgatory.
Or at least a staff member. Who’ll later give his Senator a brief summery.
It also keeps us out of trouble.
As Will Rogers used to say; “Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.”
When C-Span was new, Tip O’Neill did this - he once ordered the cameras turned around to show that someone was addressing an empty house. It caused a bit of a stir at the time.