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{"id":27560,"date":"2026-10-21T09:04:40","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/this-member-is-so-frustrated-with-congress-he-wants-voters-to-sidestep-it\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T09:04:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T09:04:40","slug":"this-member-is-so-frustrated-with-congress-he-wants-voters-to-sidestep-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/this-member-is-so-frustrated-with-congress-he-wants-voters-to-sidestep-it\/","title":{"rendered":"This member is so frustrated with Congress he wants voters to sidestep it"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>At the end of one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2026\/10\/15\/so-far-the-119th-congress-is-among-the-least-productive-of-the-past-40-years\/\" target=\"_blank\">least productive Congresses<\/a> in modern history, freshman Rep. Johnny Olszewski is so sick of the gridlock on Capitol Hill that he wants voters to bypass it entirely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s been a long two years,\u201d the Maryland Democrat said in a Tuesday interview.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the things that&#8217;s made it difficult as a new member is to see not only the dysfunction, but also the missed opportunities,\u201d he added. \u201cThere are so many issues out there that Americans support that this Congress and frankly prior Congresses have failed to act on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fed up with the lack of progress on popular policies like <a href=\"https:\/\/drum.lib.umd.edu\/items\/6dbca567-f940-4897-bde1-02610cfb5ef6?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\">banning congressional stock trading<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cato.org\/policing-in-america\/chapter-4\/police-body-cameras\" target=\"_blank\">equipping police with body cameras<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2024\/05\/13\/americans-overwhelmingly-say-access-to-ivf-is-a-good-thing\/\" target=\"_blank\">protecting in vitro fertilization<\/a>, Olszewski is introducing a constitutional amendment Thursday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/f\/?id=000001a1-5b29-d95c-abe7-ffef08890000\" target=\"_blank\">first shared with POLITICO<\/a>, that would create a mechanism for voters to make federal law directly.<\/p>\n<p>The measure would give voters 18 months to gather signatures from at least 5% of people who participated in the most recent presidential election in 25 states. Then any qualifying direct-democracy measure would be put on ballots for the next national election and need a 60% national majority to pass.<\/p>\n<p>Votes to declare war or direct federal spending would not be eligible under the proposal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we were acting, there&#8217;d be no need for this to come into play,\u201d Olszewski said. \u201cIt would create a really important backstop for the American people to say, \u2018You know what \u2026 irrespective of which party is in power, Congress is failing to meet not just our everyday needs but act on issues that we overwhelmingly support and want to see acted upon.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The amendment \u2014 which itself would require support from two-thirds of the House and Senate as well as three-quarters of states \u2014 is an incredible longshot and would create serious implementation headaches, but Olszewski \u2014 a former civics teacher \u2014 hopes his proposal will spark a discussion about congressional reform.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI understand that any constitutional amendment is going to be difficult,\u201d Olszewski said. \u201cBut I&#8217;m hopeful that at least for the lame duck session, this is an opportunity to create a conversation around the fact that we have been so gridlocked that we have failed to address the needs of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the end of one of the least productive Congresses in modern history, freshman Rep. Johnny Olszewski is so sick of the gridlock on Capitol Hill that he wants voters to bypass it entirely. \u201cIt&#8217;s been a long two years,\u201d the Maryland Democrat said in a Tuesday interview. \u201cOne of the things that&#8217;s made it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}