SCOTUS

5 Questions

1. Why did the "you lie" guy become famous?
2. Has any other legislation ever passed without receiving a single vote from a party?
3. How did President Obama create a congress that is so polarized?
4. When the GOP became the majority party, why did voters put such an emphasis on candidates that had not been in Washington?
5. First Nobel Peace Prize winner with a kill list?

Exploring Congress; How it Works

      According to vocativ.com, Marco Rubio is currently one of the worst congressmen. This is probably due to the fact that he currently has the most missed votes if any member of congress, which gave him an absentee rate of 8.30%. From October to December of 2015, Rubio missed around 75% of votes. However, when he does vote, his ideas tend to lean towards those of other Republicans and he also scores about 50% on the leadership scale. The Report Card of govtrack.us ranks Rubio as second highest among Senate Republicans in terms of working with with the house and third highest for bills sponsored. His report card also puts him in the highest 20% among Senate Republicans in leadership and bills introduced. He primarily supports bills in the areas of foreign affairs, taxation, health, crime and law enforcement, welfare and the finance sector.
      The bill that Rubio sponsored that interests me the most is the Second Amendment Enforcement Act of 2015, which has only a 5% chance of being enacted. The bill is 42 pages long and was read twice in front of the Department of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The bill states that district government can not prohibit someone who is allowed to own guns from owning them barring the hunting of some wild animals and birds. It also makes it illegal for any authority to eliminate the private ownership or use of firearms for legitimate person. The bill also intends to amend the Firearm Regulation Control Act of 1975. to change the definition of a machine gun so that the repeal of semiautomatic weapons in D.C. ends and eliminate criminal penalties of unregistered firearms. The really strange thing about the bill that I found was that the first section was titled "Short title" and simply stated that the bill could be referred to as the Second Amendment Enforcement Act of 2015.



Links:
http://www.vocativ.com/usa/us-politics/congress-absenteeism/
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s874/summary
http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/fashion/daily/2016/01/05/05-rubio-boots.w245.h368.jpg