Senator No Longer Reads Bills

Senator Chuck Grassley recently admitted that he no longer reads bills that come up in the Senate before voting on them. First elected in 1980, and now serving in his fifth term in Congress, Grassley has stated he first stopped reading bills sometime during the latter stages of his first term. According to sources, the task proved too time-consuming for the Republican senator from Iowa.

"When I first arrived in Washington, D.C. back in 1980, I thought I was going to change the country for the better," the Iowan family farmer said, while at a luncheon thrown by various lobbyist groups. "Really make a difference, you know. So yes, I read every page of every single bill that came across my desk and some of them were really long. But there were just so many that my eyes got tired and my head started hurting so I came up with a far simpler way of voting. If the bill is introduced by a Republican, then I vote yes, and if it's not, then I vote no."

Although Grassley's Internet biography claims that he is "known as a workhorse," he puts more work into getting re-elected than he does into being an informed voter. "When you think about it," Grassley stated, "what i'm doing is really no different than what my constituents do on Election Day. Do you think they really take the time to educate themselves about where I stand on the issues? Of course not. All they see is Republican beside my name and that's all they need to know."

Since Senator Grassley's simplistic voting ideology leaves him with so much free time, he has found other ways to occupy his mind. "What I like to do when things get slow around my re-election campaign is to see what I can add to bills before they get passed," Grassley continued. "One time, John Cornyn and I got together, and this is still hilarious, on a bill that made breastfeeding in public illegal, we also made it against the law for gays to drink from the same water fountain as straights. I have to say of all the things I've done in the Senate, I am most proud of that."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has reported that party-line voting is more prevalent among senators than the average Amerian voter thinks. "Oh yeah, every senator when he first arrives here is gung-ho about the lawmaking process," Frist said. "But eventually all of them get tired of the whole 'make the country better' thing. Kennedy, Feingold, Specter. It doesn't matter whether the senator is Democrat or Republican. We all learn partisanship is more important than our own convictions or we don't stay here long. And the great thing about it is no one holds you accountable. God, I love democracy."