Could Congress suck any harder?

As a follow-up to Spudsy’s post last Thursday, the renewal of the Voting Rights Act is still being held up by Republicans—who are now not just complaining about bilingual ballots, but also moaning about “whether hearings should examine the impact of this week's Supreme Court ruling on Texas redistricting.” Key parts of the Act will expire next year if Congress doesn’t act to renew it.

House Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said Congress would return to the matter after a weeklong July 4 recess. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said party members were "holding our fire and patiently waiting for the Republicans to work out their politics."

What a swell idea! This is why I’m not a member of Congress—because if I were, I’d do something completely insane like stick my ugly mug in front of every camera I could find to inform the American public that the GOP is trying to make political hay out of something as fundamental as the right to vote, grabbing at any straw they can find to try to undermine the renewal of legislation that (ostensibly) guarantees fair elections. I’d probably also go batshit crazy and use that opportunity to attach the GOP’s contempt of voting rights to Speaker Hastert’s refusal to bring to a vote Congressman Holt's Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act, even though it has 192 co-sponsors. That’s just how crazy I am.

But “patiently waiting for the Republicans to work out their politics” sounds like a much better idea.