meetings. Moving the Executive is a much different thing. Wherever the Governor or President might be, the cabinet is going to need to be, then all the operating agency heads are going to need to be where the Secretary/Commissioner are, and they’re all going to need support staff. That’s a lot of people and a lot of disruption every time you “rotate” the executive branch. Plus, once you get below the elected and appointed official level, there’s a lot to be said for having experienced people who actually know how to push the rope.

I know there are 1st Am. issues, but the one thing that I think would do more for the honesty and relevance of government at every level would be to prohibit radio and television advertising. In many markets, that is the bulk of the expenditures and electronic media advertising is the basis of policy determinations being made on 15 second soundbites and pure emotion. Buying all those commercials is the reason most polticians spend most of their time hustling money and the reason people who can raise money have so much influence.

Another thing that might help would be to prohibit fund raising events outside the district. That gets away from the speech and association issues involved with prohibiting contributions from outside the district but puts a real crimp on the bundlers, lobbyists, and interest groups’ ability to throw a fundraiser in the capital or in some swank place where the candidate/officeholder is more free from the surly bonds of those provincials back in the district. How many times has some political figure been hoisted from his “ill-considered” remarks in some place that he thought they were well-considered but then the folks in the district heard about it.

but I’ve done a lot and it sure ain’t something you’d want to do every week. More than once I’ve flown all night and went to work on the East Coast that morning; you’d best be really young and healthy to do much of that. When I came to be in charge, I simply wouldn’t let my people do it because I wanted them sharp for whatever they were going back east to do. I made them go a day early just so they could catch up and adjust; there’s a reason the West Coast football teams usually do so poorly in the Eastern Time Zone.

It may be a four hour flight from LAX to DCA, but it is also three time zones so it’s effectively a seven hour flight. Throw in two hours or more for the commute, checking, and screening, and an hour or more to get to your hotel or DC home and you have ten hours or more for that trip. On the obscure chance that I became a member of Congress and wanted to get back to Juneau for the weekends, on the way to DC, I pretty much have to leave here Sunday afternoon or evening and spend the night in Seattle then take the morning n/s to Reagan. That’s an all day flight, so there goes Monday; hope nothing important was happening. Then to get back to JNU, I have to leave DCA Friday morning, fly to LAX, change planes, fly to SEA, change planes, fly SEA to JNU and I get there about 10 PM, assuming everything is on time and all the connections work. Now that ain’t something I’d want to do real often. I think Don Young pushes it by maintaining an essentially uninhabitable trailer as his domicile in Ft. Yukon and only coming home for the requisite grip and grins, but I don’t hold it against Sen. Murkowski or Sen. Stevens before her for not coming home real often. Don’t know what Begich will do but I suspect he’ll be so happy in Comrade Obama’s DC, that he’ll never come home again until re-eletion time. Then he’ll lose and like Gravel before him, the last Democrat to serve in DC, he’ll never be seen in Alaska again.

is fooling themselves. Really, it doesn’t matter if you know what crap he’s proposed.

Back to what you were saying, having a residence in the DC area and in the district live in, makes you think that you represent 2 places instead of the one that your elected too. It’s just doesn’t work well. What we really need to do is elected a person that states that they are not up there to make friends, but to listen to what the constituents want. It doesn’t seem to be happening at all. Also, no more swanky offices for congressmen/congresswomen. All this nice office space has gone to their heads. If the offices in DC are like the ones in Austin(really nice digs), then we know what the problem is. Anyways, I have more but I’m felling like I’m writing a diatribe here. I stop now.