Who Would You Sit Next to at the SOTU?

For this year's State of the Union address, congressmen are playing a bipartisan game of musical chairs, looking for cross-party partners to sit with.

If you were a member of Congress, whom would you like to sit next to at tonight’s State of the Union speech?

I’d sit next to Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, R-Maryland.

For one thing, he’s not a lawyer. Not that I have anything against lawyers. My son is studying law at Seattle University, and our retirement plan is to move in with him after he gets a lucrative job at a mahogany-paneled law office downtown. Someday, I’ll let him in on the plan.

Anyway, I picked Bartlett because he has a checkered background, and I mean that in a positive sense. He has taken steps in many walks of life – theology student, teacher, research scientist, inventor, farmer.

That’s important because congressmen should understand in their bones the many ways in which their constituents live and how those many worlds frame their thinking. They can be better representatives if they have visited some of those worlds and lived in them.

Congressmen should understand science, how scientists work, and what they do. Scientific discovery and technological advances made our world. Science can contribute answers to difficult problems like diversifying our energy choices and keeping us healthy at an affordable cost.

Bartlett understands science. He has taught science and done science. He holds patents in respiratory equipment used by military pilots and astronauts.

With his science background, Bartlett comprehends America’s oil dependence problem like few others in DC. He has persistently talked about the national security and economic risks of oil dependence, and promoted alternative energy sources to cut those risks. He’s even built solar-powered homes in Frederick County.

All around, a fascinating guy. Hell, if I were in Congress, not only would I sit next to Bartlett, I might even ask him if we could go talk science over a pizza after the SOTU.

My seatmate would be Roscoe Bartlett. Who would be yours?

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