[Politics] Why senators are fighting about their breeches again

[GlaD1]

                                  Why senators are fighting about their breeches again

The historical arc of the United States has brought us from the beginning, when most senators wore breeches – knee-length pants with silk stockings – to a place where about half the senators are complaining that one senator wants to wear shorts – knee-length shorts, often without socks.

Stacked up against the long and growing to-do list on which the House and Senate are making very little progress, this dress code flap seems like a distraction.

House Republicans are fighting among themselves and unable to pass a spending bill that would be an opening bid to deal with Democrats before government funding lapses at the end of the month.
Senators still haven’t figured out how to get Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Alabama Republican, to end his blockade of all top-level Pentagon nominations.
Sen. John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has a preference for wearing shorts and a hoodie, noted the disconnect between the importance of matters of state and matters of style when he issued a press release offering to wear a suit if Republicans could agree to pass a spending bill.

30 years ago …
Then-Sen. Barbara Mikulski, the 4-foot-11-inch Democrat from Maryland, caused a stir – some call it the “pantsuit rebellion” – in 1993 when she confirmed with the Senate parliamentarian that there was no written dress code and then dared to abandon skirts and dresses to wear pants on the Senate floor.

Mikulski, now retired, told CNN’s Dana Bash about it in 2010.

“I’m most comfortable wearing slacks, and well, for a woman to come on the (Senate) floor in trousers was viewed as a seismographic event,” Mikulski said.

Aren’t there more important things?
Now, the 6-foot-8-inch Fetterman is causing a stir by baring his legs in shorts.

“Aren’t there more important things we should be talking about rather than if I dress like a slob?” Fetterman asked on MSNBC.

Most Republicans and at least one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have complained. Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican from Maine, joked she might wear a bikini “because there’s no dress code anymore.”

                link https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/20/politics/senate-dress-code-what-matters/index.html