Over the summer, the presidential race seemed to over take the news of other governmental entities, as it should have. A former president being shot at, the current president dropping out of the 2024 election race, the earliest debate in presidential history and so many other news headlines about the presidential race, it warranted being covered more than anything else within our government. Now, behind all of this, Congress was still working long and hard on issues and changes that most likely went under the table for most Americans. In three months of summer, there have been many events to occur that beg the question, is there contempt for Congress?

Contempt of Congress is more confusing than you might think. I immediately thought about contempt of court, like in district courts, where a judge can find you in contempt of court. Which basically means one is disturbing the actions being held by that following court and can be fined or imprisoned for such offense. Well that can still stand true in Congress, where the offense is similar, but is now under the authority of Congress. 

The reason for writing this article relates to a certain incident that occurred back in June of this year. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont was leading a hearing for the Senate Labor Committee where a republican congressman from Tennessee, Markwayne Mullin, challenged  union leader Sean O’Brien after a series of tweets from O’Brien, challenging Mullin to a fight. Once the two exchanged some dialogue about them “finishing it here,” Sanders stepped in to dissolve the conflict, saying to Mullin, “No, no, sit down! Sit down! You’re a United States senator!” This is a hearing. And God knows the American people have enough contempt for Congress, let’s not make it worse.” Sanders continued to go on explaining how the Senator needs to realign his worries and not pick fights as a representative of the people. But to me, this just makes me wonder if the people are even paying attention to the Senate and Congress. (The Guardian and Forbes News)

Social media had no focus on this event in the Senate, when there are events similar to these that the media is quick to make into memes and into bigger stories than they are. Similar situation with Bytedance, the owners of TikTok who are still on the clock to sell TikTok before April of 2025. However, this legislation has been passed by Congress, the Senate and President Biden since April of 2024, but no news has occured since. (CBS News) Now, this could be because there is no actual news about the selling of TikTok, but in my opinion, the presidential candidates for 2024 should use the possibility of lifting the legislation as a way to persuade the younger demographic of voters. 

The contempt for Congress amongst the American people is viewed by each individual and given a separate opinion, as the country allows us to have, but to my personal belief, there are too many people in my own demographic of younger ages and other demographics that are not considering the actions of Congress today. They still have a large impact on the way we live our lives, nearly as big as the President of the United States. This impact on our lives should be given more attention, and I hope that as the election coverage halts and a new president enters office, our focus shifts to the actions and emotions of our current lawmakers of the federal government.