EDJUN25

The recent news cycle played and replayed the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Gulf oil spill updates, and coverage of various gubernatorial races around the country but little is reported about Congress beyond the purely political.

It is no wonder, then, that Americans have a low opinion Congress if all they hear about is partisan bickering on a few issues under consideration.

The House and Senate move a minimum of 25 bills each week and sometime as many as 150 prior to a lengthy break.

What the news cycle accomplishes is a voting public aware of major issues many of which do not effect them directly or personally while they remain unaware that Congress is involved in much more than those issues.

The House passed HR 3993 this week providing some consumer protection that will certainly have an impact on one of those irksome things that happen at inopportune moments making one feel that they are being taken advantage of with little or no recourse.

Here is what the bill's sponsor, Rep Elliott Engle (D-NY) said motivated him to produce the bill that forces issuers of prepaid phone cards to disclose details such as hidden fees and expiration dates that negatively affect many consumers to include our troops overseas:

"When I heard about these problems, I purchased a calling card to investigate the problem for myself. What shocked me--although, it should come as no surprise to anybody now--is that I found the exact same problems my constituents were having. One of those companies promised me a certain number of minutes, and I found that it was a complete fabrication. I did not receive even close to the number of minutes that the card advertised. This is when I decided to introduce my legislation to ban this practice." Engle's bill passed 381 to 41.

Last week the House passed a bill requiring that gift cards and certificates remove expiration dates and disclose various fees that ultimately drain the dollar resources of the card or make them unusable before the money has been spent. Another irksome matter addressed and passed 357 to 0. ##

No reproduction, language translation or distribution of all website content without written permission from TheWeekInCongress.com.(TM)

Historical Highlights

from the Clerk of the US House

The Mysterious National Hotel Disease

June 24, 1859

On this date, David F. Robison of Pennsylvania died at his Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, home of complications from the mysterious National Hotel Disease, contracted more than two years earlier at the time of President James Buchanan’s inauguration.

By some accounts, nearly three dozen people died from the affliction and as many as 400 more were sickened. The National (located on the site of the present-day Newseum) was one of the city’s most popular and plush hotels, serving a clientele of influential politicians, particularly southern Members of Congress. Buchanan, a former Representative from Pennsylvania once described as a “northern man with southern principles” and possessing anti-abolitionist convictions, chose the National as his pre-inauguration lodgings.

The President-elect and several Members of the Pennsylvania delegation—including Robison, set to retire from Congress of March 3—were among the scores of hotel guests who fell ill (though Buchanan made a quick recovery). Rumors, fed by sensationalized newspaper coverage, soon emerged that victims had been poisoned by arsenic, the result of a botched assassination attempt on Buchanan by radical abolitionists. “From every quarter of the country come in denunciations of what is styled—not without warrant,” blared the New York Times, “the determination on the part of interested parties to stifle inquiry and hoodwink suspicion concerning what has every appearance of being the most gigantic and startling crime of the age.”

Medical experts now believe the disease outbreak to have been caused by dysentery because of the hotel’s primitive sewage system. In an age when scientists and doctors knew little about bacterial infections and how to treat them, dysentery was a dangerous affliction.

The National Hotel Disease claimed two other victims in the House—John G. Montgomery of Pennsylvania, who lingered until April 1857, and John Quitman of Mississippi who died the following summer from after-effects.##