September 18 – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has instructed the Senate Sergeant at Arms to no longer enforce the Chamber’s dress code for its members.
Although the dress codes still officially exist, Senators are now free to wear whatever they prefer.
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM suggested, “Heck, we could see John Fetterman and his mustache and his hoodie and maybe gym shorts. He could have for all I know one of those inflatables around his belly as he walks on the Senate floor with flip flops. That guy and people on the left and people on the right, we’ve got a bigger problem than the damn dress code when all they can do is spend all of your money and then some out of oblivion here.”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “I think you are going to see him now on the Senate floor dressed in his gym shorts and his hoodie because that has been strictly enforced up until now, you must have on a coat and tie on the Senate floor and Fetterman’s work around was he would be casually dressed in the cloakroom and when they would call for a vote he would just stick a foot out the door and shout up to the Chair of what his vote was. So now that they’re relaxing this you’ll see him on the floor speaking, voting in that casual dress and it seems like you’re seeing more and more of this with him. When he originally took office, he would wear a suit and tie at committee hearings, but lately, you see him walking around in the Capitol Building and reporters will catch him, he’s very casually dressed and no doubt this new rule was a concession to him, but I do feel is this just one more thing that’s eroding the institutions? There needs to be some degree of decorum, in my opinion, when you’re on the floors of those Chambers, and here we go. This is now being relaxed. Is that now going to be forever gone and you’re just going to see all this very casual dress now in the Senate? Maybe this will extend to the House and other parts of the government as well.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM pointed out, “There’s something about the way something looks that translates to how people act. When you talk about relaxing decorum, are we just going to start seeing fistfights on the floor? That’s not too much of an exaggeration because we do need to have respectful dialogue going on in the institutions. I think sloppy-ing the dress and coming in casually means we’re going to start sloppy-ing the rules. We already see that starting to happen. Are we going to become like the parliament in the UK and other places around the world? There’s a reason you have to have some rules and decorum. As we relax all the standards, I think it’s going to translate to other standards, like how we treat each other there as well.”
Barkdoll said, “Think about internationally, you’re a foreign leader from wherever and you’re watching Senate debates now and here are our senators in shorts and T shirts and flip flops. I mean, I just think we lose credibility, I think, when this stuff starts getting too relaxed, but like we’ve seen now that they’re going to relax it and let’s assume Fetterman for one and who knows how many others will now go in with this, not put on their suit and tie, there will be no going back. That’s why I say this is just one more way that I think it erodes the confidence in these institutions.”
