I’m still seeing progressive friends of mine all giddy and star-struck with something Ocasio-Cortez called for 3 weeks ago:
US Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on Saturday called for congressional salaries to be put on hold during the next government shutdown.
The US government went into a partial shutdown at midnight on Friday after President Trump refused to sign a spending bill that did not include $5 billion for his wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. He had long claimed that Mexico would pay for the wall.
“It’s completely unacceptable that members of Congress can force a government shutdown on partisan lines & then have Congressional salaries exempt from that decision,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter.
“Have some integrity,” she added, calling for salaries to be furloughed for the next shutdown.
Members of the House and the Senate are paid $174,000 a year.
Representative Dan Crenshaw is skipping out on his congressional pay. So is U.S. Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona. Who else? More than 70 members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats:
House of Representatives
- Rep. Denver Riggleman (new, R-Virginia) (donating salary to volunteer fire department)
- Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tennessee)
- Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Pennsylvania)
- Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pennsylvania)
- Rep. Dutch Ruppersburger (D-Maryland)
- Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-New York)
- Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Arizona)
- Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tennessee)
- Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas)
- Rep. Jason Smith (R-Missouri)
- Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-New York)
- Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado)
- Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Washington) (donating to the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project)
- Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) (donating to food banks in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens)
- Rep. Brad Sherman (D-California)
- Rep. Mark Meadows (R-North Carolina)
- Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah)
- Rep. Ben McAdams (new, D-Utah)
- Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Indiana)
- Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Florida)
- Rep. Angie Craig (new, D-Minnesota)
- Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Montana)
- Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Oklahoma) (donating to veterans groups)
- Rep. French Hill (R-Arkansas)
- Rep. Chris Pappas (new, D-New Hampshire)
- Rep. George Holding (R-North Carolina)
- Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas)
- Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio)
- Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio)
- Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Michigan)
- Rep. Max Rose (new, D-New York)
- Rep. Mikie Sherrill (new, D-New Jersey)
- Rep. Ross Spano (new, R-Florida)
- Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York)
- Rep. Van Taylor (new, R-Texas)
- Rep. Mark Walker (R-North Carolina)
- Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-New York)
- Rep. Abigail Spanberger (new, D-Virginia)
- Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming)
- Rep. Elaine Luria (new, D-Virginia)
- Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Illinois)
- Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania)
- Rep. Mark Green (new, R-Tennessee)
- Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska)
- Rep. Elissa Slotkin (new, D-Michigan)
- Rep. Garret Graves (R-Louisiana)
- Rep. John Joyce (new, R-Pennsylvania)
- Rep. Dan Crenshaw (new, R-Texas)
- Rep. David Trone (new, D-Maryland)
- Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina)
- Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Virginia) (donating to a charity to be determined)
- Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nevada)
- Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Oregon) (donating to an Oregon charity)
- Rep. Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina) (donating to a charity to be determined)
- Rep. David Schweikert (R-Arizona)
- Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Virginia)
- Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vermont)
- Rep. Chip Roy (new, R-Texas)
Senators
- Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) (donating to West Virginia food banks)
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) (donating to refugee group HIAS)
- Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) (donating to Hawaiian food banks)
- Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) (donating to Nevada charity)
- Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) (donating to unspecified charity)
- Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) (donating to The Boys & Girls Club of Oshkosh)
- Sen. Todd Young (R-Indiana) (donating to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation)
- Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania)
- Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana)
- Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) (donating to Homes For The Brave)
- Sen. Jacky Rosen (new, D-Nevada) (donating to domestic violence survivor programs in Nevada)
- Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minnesota) (donating to Advocates for Human Rights)
- Sen. John Hoeven (R-North Dakota) (donating to charity, likely the North Dakota National Guard Foundation and the United Way’s Emergency Homeless Shelter in Bismarck)
Hmm…..Whose name do we not see on that list, thus far? Someone who ran away when asked a simple and direct question.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.