Sen. Rand Paul (R-AR)
Rand Paul's presidential campaign slogan is a call to "defeat the Washington machine," and you have to ask if one of the ways he's trying to defeat it is by
skipping out on his job as a senator:
Kentucky. Sen Rand Paul has skipped most Homeland Security hearings since 2014, a review of videos and documents related to the hearings show. BuzzFeed News was only able to verify Paul’s attendance at five out of 73 hearings since last January, less than ten percent overall.
And it's not that he's been skipping the hearings on issues he didn't consider important, but laser focusing on the topics he really cares about:
“As President, I would secure our border immediately,” Paul’s website reads. “Before issuing any visas or starting the legal immigration process, we must first ensure that our border is secure.”
Paul missed four different hearings related to border security this month.
Paul's office countered that hey, he'd been there for almost all of the votes the full Senate held, and also he's been playing populist hooky because he meets with constituents sometimes instead of going to committee hearings. But shouldn't a guy who's making a HUGE deal out of how members of Congress should read every page of every bill be attending the hearings that at least theoretically inform future legislation and provide information on how existing laws are working out?
Paul isn't alone in the Republican presidential field, though, even though there's only one other officially declared candidate. Sen. Ted Cruz has also been shirking his committee responsibilities, amassing the worst attendance record on the Senate Armed Services Committee so far in 2015.