Sometimes I think members of Congress get a bum rap when they receive criticism for not working hard enough. True, they aren’t exactly sticklers about five-day workweeks. And yes, they have more vacation time than Denmark and Finland combined. But just because they get an entire week off for Presidents Day, we shouldn’t be too quick to judge.

For the record, they don’t like to call it vacation time, either. They prefer to call it Congressional District Work Periods.

What business is it of ours if they occasionally see the need to elongate their congressional district from, say, Sacramento to Cancun or Brussels? I am sure they are performing some very serious undercover investigative work that they simply cannot talk about for security reasons. Taking spouses along is all part of the cover.

Some of the snarkiest among us might suggest that all this time off explains why it took Congress all the way to Christmas last year before they completed the one, single, solitary thing they are actually on this earth to do — pass required spending bills. That pesky little matter of keeping the government from shutting down and all.

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps members of Congress are actually hard at work and you aren’t paying close enough attention? Did you ever stop to consider that maybe, just maybe — while your attention is drifting from one Britney or Lohan saga to another — Congress is heroically dealing with some thankless yet critical legislation that goes entirely unnoticed?

Take House Resolution 3079, for instance. This bill amended the Joint Resolution Approving the Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and for other purposes. I think you will agree — very important stuff.

This is not a measly bill to establish a commonwealth, nor is it a bill to approve a covenant for a commonwealth. This bill actually amends the — er … Oh, don’t worry about the details! This is important stuff, people, and your Congress is on the job.

And for other purposes — don’t forget.

You always have to pay special attention when that particular phrase is tacked onto the end of any bill. I am sure there is a smart, lawyerly reason for it, but I think they just stick it in there so they can bulk up the verbiage like I used to do with my college term papers. Throw in “so forth and so on” 40 or 50 times in a term paper and you can get to 5,000 words faster than you can say, “Friday-night kegger.”

On second thought, maybe they include “and for other purposes” just in case some vigilant, patriotic committee chairman wakes up in the middle of the night and has a brainstorm about how to spend an extra billion dollars. So what if a particular spending bill has, inconveniently, already been signed into law? Flexibility is a good thing when we are talking about government in the 21st century, don’t you think?

And how about this bit of legislative work:

By a unanimous vote the House recently passed a resolution honoring the late tenor Luciano Pavarotti. I’ll bet that if the sponsor, Democrat Loretta Sanchez of California, had had just a little more seniority, she could have gotten “and for other purposes” tacked onto the end of her bill, too.

Another legislative achievement that has gone completely unnoticed is the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act. I don’t know what part of Do Not Call actually needed improvement, but I am sure Congress found a way to make it even better.

And then there was House Resolution 1413. This bill directed the assistant secretary of Homeland Security to “address vulnerabilities in aviation security by carrying out a pilot program to screen airport workers with access to secure and sterile areas of airports.”

No fooling. That’s the actual name of the bill.

I have never heard of a sterile area of any airport, but beyond that, it is certainly interesting that Congress ordered the assistant secretary to perform the work.

Being smart and forward-thinking, your Congress must know that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is too busy cattle-prodding elderly Scandinavian grandmothers at both sterile and non-sterile security checkpoints from coast to coast.

My space here does not allow me to give you a complete account of the other fine pieces of legislative work that your Congress has been working on while you were occupied with other things. But based on this small sampling, I am sure you are now ready to apologize for even thinking that Congress doesn’t work hard enough. Maybe now you will cut them some slack if your representative and his wife pop up on YouTube singing bar tunes while slinging back shots of tequila at Señor Frog’s in Cancun. They are taking one for the home team. So let’s show some respect.

And so forth and so on....

You can reach Jim Mills at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it