Not a part-time job

We pay the legislative branch $7.258 billion a year. That is Public Law 119-37, FY2026. CRS lays the table out https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48612 People hear $174,500 and think they are cheap. The salary is the decoy. The bill is seven billion dollars for a floor that sits far fewer days than a school year, and a fundraising calendar that never stops.

The days

• From 2001 to 2023 the House averaged about 150 days in session a year. The Senate averaged about 167. Ballotpedia, from the official calendars. https://ballotpedia.org/119th_Congress_legislative_calendar
• For 2025 the House was scheduled for 135 days. The Senate, 179. A full-time job in this country is about 260 weekdays, minus holidays. A school year is about 180 days. They sit less than the school.
• USAFacts, 2025: 30 percent of House sessions lasted less than five minutes. 18 percent of Senate sessions, the same. A typical House session ran about four hours — half a civilian workday. https://usafacts.org/articles/congressional-time-in-session/
• A 'day in session' can be a gavel and a prayer. Pro forma. The calendar still counts it. The donor circuit does not need a gavel.

No part-time job in America pays $174,500 plus a pension that outlives you, FEHB, a million-dollar office allowance, a gym, and $7.258 billion of machine around the chair. It must stop — or they work full time. If you are in session, you are in the building. Call time is not the job. The years they serve are years of work. While they hold the gavel it is the only job. No board. No book tour. No hotel ballroom as the main event. You already paid them.

Part-time Congress is full-time lobby. Full-time pay. Full-time work — or the perks end.

Politics as a jersey will not pass that. The people who would vote away their own calendar will not. The next page is what we can do without becoming them.