Priorities, people

LITTLE ROCK — SAY WHAT you will about congressmen, those people know their priorities. Hand it to the Founding Fathers, too. They knew that the Senate they created would be the more deliberative body, while the House of Representatives would be closer to the people and more likely to reflect the changing popular mood.

The House is elected every two years. Seats are apportioned according to population. So the representatives’ electoral base tends to be much smaller, even homier. Hand-shakers, these folks are. Congressmen tend to knowmany of their constituents by name. As a rule, they don’t have a whole state to represent. They’re closer to the people-and the people’s interests and passions.

So while the president was collecting his Nobel Peace Prize and ratcheting up troop levels in Afghanistan, some representatives in the House were focused elsewhere. While senators were debating health-care proposals and trying to hammer out a deal that would please 60 of them, or at least contain enough goodies for their state to sew up those 60 votes, the members of the House were concentrating on another momentous issue. While world leaders gathered in Copenhagen to discuss climate change, carbon output, pollution, the environment, polar bears and whether homo sapiens will still be around in 100 years, our U.S. representatives have their priorities straight. Some of them are using their time to debate . . . .

College football.

That’s right, baby, college football. The honorables serving on the distinguished Commerce and Consumer Protection Subcommittee were debating whether big-time college football should adopt a new system of playoffs to determine the national champion. Why, sure. College football is big money, and money is commerce. And consumers should be protected from, uh, well, no need to go into detail. Suffice it to say that the honorables serving on the Com. and Cons. Prot. Subcom. know how to get headlines.

Last week, the congresspersons on the committee solemnly approved legislation that would overturn college football’s current bowl system. Instead, the proposed law would mandate playoffs, and not allow anything to be called the National Championship Game without one. Even though No. 1 Alabama is playing No. 2 Texas this yearfor all the marbles, or at least the Bowl Championship Series trophy, there are other undefeated teams that want in on the action. So the Congress of the United States, in its collective wisdom, or at least one subcommittee’s, is ready to get involved. (“We’re from the federal government and we’re here to help you.”) And everybody knows how helpful the federal government can be. See Katrina. Or the latest congressional indictment.

There was some opposition to this football reform bill. A representative from Georgia-Georgia!-votedagainst this latest act of federal beneficence.

“With all due respect,” said the Hon. John Barrow of that state’s Twelfth District, “I really think we have more importantthings to spend our time on.”

Remember the name John Barrow, sports fans, because we get the feeling he won’t be a congressman much longer. At least not from Georgia. Maybe if he moved to Alaska, where football played in the Lower 48 may not be all that important. But imagine a congressman from an SEC state not taking football sufficiently seriously. Doesn’t he know football is our state religion in these latitudes?

THE OBAMA administration has just extended its $700-billion financial bailout program for another 10 months. Meanwhile, senators told the country that they’d reached broad agreement on expanding the nation’s health care coverage, although in what is surely a rarity among politicians, they weren’’t talking about it, or at least dealing in details. (That’s the well-known place where the devil is.) Five employees with the Transportation and Security Administration have been suspended after sensitive information about airport screenings was posted on the Internet for all to see, including potential terrorists. General David Petraeus says he thinks the warin Afghanistan is going to be tougher than the one in Iraq. Unemployment hovers around 10 percent, still. For all the billions spent to help homeowners in trouble with their mortgages, reports say only about 31,000 borrowers have actually received help. And Barney Frank is still walking around free. But the Congress of the United States is talking football.

It’s nice to know that some congressmen have their priorities straight. His name is John Barrow.