WASHINGTON – They long for what's being lost: the ability to publicly question officials at committee hearings, to chat across the aisle, to speak from the House and Senate floor for all of America, and history, to hear.
Congress wants its voice back. With no real plan to reopen Capitol Hill any time soon, the coronavirus shutdown poses an existential crisis that's pushing Congress ever so reluctantly toward the 21st century option of remote legislating from home. “It’s the ability to be an equal branch of government,” said Rep.
Katie Porter, a freshman Democrat from California. Divisions are fierce, but so too is the sense of what is being lost. Every day lawmakers shelter at home, their public role is being visibly diminished.