President Obama at this 2012 State of the Union address. One former lawmaker wants members of Congress to just listen, not applaud or sit on their hands at every turn.
It's become a somewhat childish political tradition that when presidents deliver a State of the Union address, half of Congress jumps up and claps at the applause lines while the other half sits on its hands.
One former lawmaker wants everyone to just shut up and listen instead when President Obama delivers his address on Tuesday.
“One of the best things about not being in the Senate anymore is not having to sit in that room and either having to stand up and clap every 15 seconds or sit on your hands for the whole thing,” former Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."
“I just wish so much that we would have a moratorium on standing and let everybody listen like the people outside [in] the country are," Hutchinson said.
Hutchinson shouldn't hold her breath. The closest to changing that tradition lawmakers have come in recent years is to have members sit next to a colleague in the opposing party — so at least the clappers and the sitters are interspersed.
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