The Twitter accounts of many members of Congress are straightforward outlets for disseminating press releases, messaging points, and the occasional image.
Here’s a reminder they can be cleverly interactive, too.
Friday afternoon, Bloomberg News’ Facebook page posted a link to a story with the caption, “House Republicans still don’t have a plan for avoiding the government shutdown scheduled to start Oct. 1 as the Senate prepares to pass a short-term spending bill.” Accompanying both was a perhaps subtle photo of the marble Peace Monument outside the U.S. Capitol, which depicts Grief face-palming on the shoulder of History.
Reps. Trey Radel (R-Fla.) and Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) took exception.
“Actually, House Republicans, with some Democrat support, passed a plan last Friday…a full week ago…to avoid the government shutdown,” Radel commented on the post.
“That short-term spending bill the Senate is voting on? That’s the bill the House sent over a week ago,” Griffin chimed in. An amended version of that spending bill, which undid the House provision to defund Obamacare, passed the Senate 54-44 Friday afternoon.
Here’s a screengrab of the interaction:
Although enactment of the House-passed bill was always going to be politically unfeasible, the fact remains: The House, by right, did pass the initial piece of legislation to continue government funding beyond Sept. 30. And as of publication, the spending measure has been out of the Senate’s hands for not even two hours.
Republicans have long sought ways to combat media bias. This was fighting by Facebooking.
