This is disgusting: "... just two hours a day on the business of Congress ..."

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COMMENTS: 
*  WHY should US Taxpayers PAY these Buffoons to "Dial-for-Dollars"?  They should be raising money on "Their OWN time.  Better yet find some Supreme Court Justices who can ACTUALLY interpret the US Constitution.  There is ABSOLUTELY NO Way the founders of this Country had ANY intent or written word that permits or even encourages "Dialing-for-Dollars".  Now we can see directly Why ZERO gets done in Washington.   This beyond DISGUSTING. 
*  Congressman David Jolly is absolutely right to introduce the "Stop Act,"bill that would ban all federal-elected officials from directly soliciting donations. The business of our elected officials is to do the jobs that were elected for, not to spend time, four hours a day in this report, generating funds for their reelection or their party. If anyone else spent only two hours a day performing the job they were hired to do they would be very quickly shown the door and be out of a job. 
*  The solution to this problem should be obvious as it is the same for all that is wrong with the legislative branch of government, Term Limits.  Public Service should be a privilege not a career!  Legislators should not have to spend ANY time raising money because we Do Not want you back...do what you were elected to do ie. represent our interests and go away!  McCain, Schumer, Graham your ships sailed decades ago!
*  We elect people to congress so they can be paid to spend most of their time hitting us up for money.. This is a sickness a congressional mental disorder. They are not representing us they're fleecing us. These addicts are in dire need of an intervention. 
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Are members of Congress becoming telemarketers?
Stop fundraising, start working, says Fla. Rep. David Jolly, who is seeking to ban federal-elected officials from dialing for dollars
By Norah O'Donnell, April 24, 2016

The following is [excerpted from] a script from "Dialing for Dollars" which aired on April 24, 2016. Norah O'Donnell is the correspondent. Patricia Shevlin and Miles Doran, producers.

The American public has a low opinion of Congress. Only 14 percent think it's doing a good job. But Congress has excelled in one way. Raising money. Members of Congress raised more than a billion dollars for their 2014 election. And they never stop.

Nearly every day, they spend hours on the phone asking supporters and even total strangers for campaign donations -- hours spent away from the jobs they were elected to do. The pressure on candidates to raise money has ratcheted up since the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010. That allowed unlimited spending by corporations, unions and individuals in elections. So our attention was caught by a proposal from a Republican congressman that would stop members of Congress from dialing for dollars. Given what it costs to get elected today, it's either a courageous act, a campaign ploy or political suicide.

Florida Republican David Jolly won a special election to Congress in March 2014. Facing a reelection bid that November, he was happy to get a lesson in fundraising from a member of his party's leadership. But he was surprised by what he learned.

Rep. David Jolly: We sat behind closed doors at one of the party headquarter back rooms in front of a white board where the equation was drawn out. You have six months until the election. Break that down to having to raise $2 million in the next six months. And your job, new member of Congress, is to raise $18,000 a day. Your first responsibility is to make sure you hit $18,000 a day.

Norah O'Donnell: Your first responsibility--

Rep. David Jolly: My first responsibility--

Norah O'Donnell: --as a congressman?

Rep. David Jolly: --as a sitting member of Congress.

Norah O'Donnell: How were you supposed to raise $18,000 a day?

Rep. David Jolly: Simply by calling people, cold-calling a list that fundraisers put in front of you, you're presented with their biography. So please call John. He's married to Sally. His daughter, Emma, just graduated from high school. They gave $18,000 last year to different candidates. They can give you $1,000 too if you ask them to. And they put you on the phone. And it's a script.

[major snippage]

But one successful fundraiser does not let Congress members off the hook. The phone calls asking for money never stop.

Rep. David Jolly: The House schedule is actually arranged, in some ways, around fundraising.

Norah O'Donnell: You're telling me the whole schedule of how work gets done is scheduled around fundraising?

Rep. David Jolly: That's right. You never see a committee working through lunch because those are your fundraising times. And then in between afternoon votes and evening votes, that's when you can see Democrats walking down this street, Republicans walking down that street to spend time on the phone making phone calls.

By law, members of Congress cannot make fundraising calls from their offices. So both parties have set up "call centers" just a few blocks away. This is where the Republicans have theirs.

Norah O'Donnell: So can I go in there?

Rep. David Jolly: I don't think they would let either one of us in here, at this point. Remember I stopped paying my dues.

What Jolly means is that in addition to raising money for their own campaigns, members are supposed to raise thousands of dollars for their parties. That's their dues. If Republican members don't pay up, they can't use the party's call suites. No photos exist of the inside of either the Democratic or Republican centers. But with the help of a staffer, we were able to get into the Republican center with a hidden camera.

About a dozen tiny offices, equipped with a phone and computer line a corridor. This is where members of Congress sit behind closed doors and plow through lists of donors dialing for dollars. Outside in the main hallway is a big board where the amount each member has raised for the party is posted for all to see and compare.

Rep. David Jolly: It is a cult-like boiler room on Capitol Hill where sitting members of Congress, frankly I believe, are compromising the dignity of the office they hold by sitting in these sweatshop phone booths calling people asking them for money. And their only goal is to get $500 or $1,000 or $2,000 out of the person on the other end of the line. It's shameful. It's beneath the dignity of the office that our voters in our communities entrust us to serve.

Norah O'Donnell: But you may not have a job if you don't fundraise.

Rep. David Jolly: I'm willing to take that risk.

A risk because David Jolly has pledged to stop personally asking donors for money. And that's not all. In February, he introduced a bill called the "Stop Act," that would ban all federal-elected officials from directly soliciting donations.

[major snippage]

The Republican House Campaign Committee would not tell us whether it recommends a specific amount of call time. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee claims it currently does not. But in 2013, at an orientation meeting, new Democratic members were shown a model schedule. It was later published by the Huffington Post.

It suggested representatives should spend four hours a day on call time and just two hours a day on the business of Congress - committee meetings and time on the House floor.

[major snippage]
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