New Seating Arrangement......

It's Wednesday, November 4th....the day after election day and we are waiting final results. Who will be our new President and what kind of turmoil will occur between that announcement and inauguration day? It's been an exhausting campaign and frankly an exhausting four years.

I was talking to a friend the other day remembering years when there was more cooperation in our Congress and members actually "reached across the aisle" to come to agreement about what was best for our Country. Remember that??? I'm sure there was always discussion and disagreement but still....there was bipartisan cooperation. Really....there was.

She and I were talking about how to "fix" this....experts that we are....and came up with what I think is a pretty workable idea. When you look at a photo of the chamber for the House of Representatives you will notice that the desks are literally separated by a center aisle. Wikipedia told me that "by tradition, Democrats sit on the left of the center aisle, while Republicans sit on the right, facing the presiding officer's chair." What about if the representatives from each state were simply seated alphabetically by their last name. (Remember when that used to be the procedure in grade school classrooms?) I checked the list of names for the current representatives and quickly realized that if you did seat them alphabetically they would be all mixed up.....Wyoming might sit next to Connecticut on one side and have Alabama on the other. California might sit behind Maine and in front of Louisiana. Party affiliation would have nothing to do with seating arrangement.

Hmmmmm.....now maybe, just maybe, that would foster conversations and discussions that would not happen otherwise. Maybe these elected officials might accidentally find things they could agree upon! They would be "forced" to be civil to one another so maybe there wouldn't be as much name calling and finger pointing. Maybe, just maybe, they would begin to work better together and there wouldn't be hundreds of bills just sitting in committee or on someone's desk. Maybe, just maybe the work of the government would get done more smoothly and we would all benefit.

I think I'll write to my Wisconsin Representatives and then my Senators to suggest the same thing for that chamber.

Boys and girls....change to alphabetical seating and work together dammit.