Rep. Aims to End Congress' High-Fives for Athletes

(May 25) -- If Rep. Jason Chaffetz were Congress' umpire, he'd be screaming: "You're ouuuuut!"

He'd like to throw out sports -- or at least congressional resolutions honoring sports teams for their victories. The resolutions come fast and furious on the House floor, for everyone from the NFL champion New Orleans Saints to the Crown Point Bulldogs 8 and Under Girls Softball Team (hailing from Indiana, for those scoring at home).

When golfer Phil Mickelson and the University of Texas swimming and diving team were honored recently, Chaffetz, R-Utah, decided it was time to retire the idea. He's now voting "present" instead of joining the near-unanimous majority in honoring teams. And he's urging his colleagues to rein in the practice.

"Even when the Utah Jazz come in fourth place, I'm going to hold back," he said, tongue in cheek.

Each of those votes takes up the work of legislative lawyers and clerks and about 20 minutes of time for each of the 435 members of Congress. "Let's do something productive around here, like deal with the budget," he said.

He's not the only one who thinks so.

"Instead of congratulating the local Little League team, maybe they could help the players out by trimming the deficit they will have to pay when they stop playing baseball," said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the anti-tax group National Taxpayers Union.

To Sepp, it's part of a larger picture of time-wasting in Congress, where about one-seventh of all bills passed are to name post offices, he said. And many of the professional sports teams being honored are already getting government help in the form of state and local tax breaks and subsidies for building their stadiums. "It's almost a double hit -- to the wallet," Sepp said.

The practice is about as old as the Cubs' losing streak in the World Series. Retired Washington attorney Milton Gwirtzman did a 1992 study published in The Wall Street Journal that found the cost for proclamations was about $600 a page just for the Congressional Record printing.

"Our government is running out of money and going into debt," Gwirtzman told AOL News, noting plenty of silly nonsports resolutions also have been passed. "We should only be spending on essential things, not 11-year-old girls who won a contest with the Weekly Reader."

That $600-a-page figure was nearly two decades ago. Government Printing Office officials did not return requests for comment on the current costs. (Perhaps they were too busy typing up the honors for Lance Mackey, the winner of the Alaska Iditarod dogsled race, complete with details about his marriage to his high school sweetheart.)

Congress doesn't have an umpire to decide what's worth a resolution and what's not. Chaffetz said even his 9-year-old daughter's less-than-championship soccer team would qualify.

The congressional recognition is no more a good-luck charm than gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland pushed a resolution to honor the University of Maryland's men's basketball team and coach Gary Williams in mid-March. They promptly went on to lose in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Chaffetz noted that sports figures already get a lot of attention, while teachers, border patrol officers, scientists and doctors don't. "These are the kinds of people who are truly heroes," he said.

But the resolutions are a thrill for the teams, especially a Division II champion like the Emporia State University women's basketball team. "It's a nice thing about U.S. government that they can recognize local things that happen, on a national stage," said Don Weast, Emporia State's assistant athletic director.

The team already had a civics lessons when it went to the Kansas Legislature for a similar proclamation and a close veto-override vote broke out while team members were on the House floor. The congressional honors came during finals week, but Weast watched it from the cheap seats (on C-SPAN).

"It doesn't seem like it took that much time out of the day," he said. And any chance to promote the school's top-notch teacher education program is a plus, he said.

"It recognizes something special that doesn't happen around here very often," Weast said.

Congress can't quite say the same thing about its proclamations.