“If you go and look on — and you go to my Facebook page, ‘Jeff Duncan,’ I put it up there last week, two weeks ago — there’s a video in San Diego…”
It sounds like something a congressman might say at a campaign rally, but Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., was questioning Border Patrol Chief Mark Morgan at an official Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee hearing. Duncan was referencing a video from local San Diego news on illegal immigrants claiming political asylum.
Click here to watch video of Duncan’s Facebook mention.
Oddly enough, Duncan wasn’t referencing his official congressional Facebook page, which didn’t post the San Diego video. He was referencing his personal Facebook page, which is available to the public and followed by almost 10,000 people.
Perhaps Duncan thought it was worth taking a few seconds at the hearing to plug his personal page, in hopes that however many people who were watching online might follow the page. He did this amid a line of “questioning” which (as often happens in congressional hearings) was heavy on speechifying and light on actual questions.
Duncan will likely be disappointed if he expected a surge in Facebook viewership. The livestream of the hearing seemed to have fewer than 100 viewers at any given time. Other members of the committee didn’t even bother to show up, with only three of the subcommittee’s 12 members in attendance for Morgan’s testimony and questioning (though it’s possible they were attending other committee meetings).
It’s not the first time a congressional hearing has gotten off-topic, however briefly, and Duncan isn’t the first one to use the majority of his “question” time largely for a speech.
Congressional hearings are rare opportunities to ask serious questions of federal bureaucrats and ensure accountability. It would probably behoove members to use these opportunities to ask more tough, important questions and to give fewer speeches — and fewer social media plugs.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
