This op-ed by by Donna Kallner appeared on The Daily Yonder on October 8, 2026.
Every two years, every seat in the U.S. House of Representatives is up for re-election. That’s right: It’s a limited term job, albeit one with enviable benefits.
Candidates sometimes forget who’s on the selection committee for that employment. Incumbents sometimes forget who conducts the performance reviews that determine whether their employment is extended.
Who decides? It isn’t the party or the pundits or the donors. It’s us, the voters. The responsibility lies with eligible voters – whether or not they show up at the polls.
We’ve spent much of the past 50 years blaming each other for bad hires. What if, instead, we start working together to make better choices and to hold those we hire accountable to us for how they do the job?
So let’s refresh a few things those of us on the hiring committee might keep in mind.
Representative government.
In our system of representative government, Congress is made up of two legislative bodies. In the Senate, two people from each state serve six-year terms. In the House there are 435 voting members, each of whom represents a single congressional district. House districts are intended to be roughly equal in population, as measured by the U.S. Census. Together, the House and Senate provide checks and balances to the powers of the executive and judicial branches of government under authority granted by Article One of the Constitution. The Speaker of the House is second in the presidential line of succession (after the vice president and ahead of the president pro tempore of the Senate).
All revenue policies begin in the House. According to the Office of the Historian of the U.S. House of Representatives:
“Since the earliest Congresses, the House Committee on Ways and Means has set tariff and, later, tax rates to maintain the public treasury. As the size and complexity of the federal government grew, the House created the Committee on Appropriations in 1865 to handle all spending matters, and the Budget Committee later in the twentieth century to coordinate America’s finances.”
In the Senate, an empty seat may be filled by an appointment. But in the House, the Constitution requires that vacancies be filled with a special election. Because it was the intention of those who framed our system of representative government that the House be uniquely responsive to the will of the people.
In other words, it’s our House. That makes us the hiring committee.
Compensation.
As compensation for their legislative work and constituent services, members of the house receive an annual salary of $174,000. Salaries are not for life, only during active term.
Members are automatically enrolled in the Federal Employees Retirement System using a formula that results in a 70% higher pension than other federal employees based on the first 20 years of service. Members become eligible to receive benefits after five years of service, which is two and one-half terms in the House.
To be fair, it’s probably a stretch for some members to maintain residences in both their home districts and in Washington. I’m sure constituents with long commutes or who work at job sites distant from their homes can sympathize. I’m not so sure, though, how many members of the House could, on any given day, state the current price per gallon of gasoline, the cost of a pound of hamburger, the hourly cost of childcare, or the cost to fill an LP gas tank to heat a rural home
Work load and benefits. From January 2 through August 31 of this year, the House was in session for only 113 days, working just over 377 hours. By my calculations that comes out to about 47 hours per month. Compare that with the monthly minimum work requirement this Congress felt was appropriate when it passed House Resolution 1 – the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Starting January 1, 2027, non-exempt Medicaid expansion enrollees must complete 80 hours per month of work and/or community engagement activities or be enrolled at least half-time in education.
For working far less than 80 hours per month, members of the U.S. House of Representatives can receive health care, including routine exams, consultations, and certain diagnostics, for an annual fee of $650. I wonder if those services from the Office of the Attending Physician at the U.S. Capitol were available to members during the three full or partial government shutdowns that have occurred during this session of Congress?
I should have asked that particular question when I called my current elected representative in the House during a shutdown. Actually, I never got to speak to him. The congressman wasn’t in Washington working to help bring the shutdown to an end. He was campaigning for the job he wants next – governor of our state. Since he isn’t running for another term in Congress, I’ll deliver his performance review on the gubernatorial section of my ballot in November.
Frankly, I’m not too happy with the performances of some other representatives from Wisconsin who are running for re-election. I don’t get a say on another district’s hiring committee, but I’m entitled to my opinions. And my opinion is that we have a $40 trillion national debt. The executive branch of the federal government is waging trade wars with and alienating our allies. Diesel prices have hit record highs. An affordability crisis is making life harder for most of us. The war with Iran has depleted our military resources. With all that going on, the House recessed again in September until after the election. That’s so members could avoid going on record on a resolution to impeach the Secretary of Defense. House leadership sent members home last year to delay swearing in the winner of a special election because that new member was expected to become the 218th signature on the Epstein files discharge petition.
Let’s hope the hiring committees in every congressional district have learned from past experience and are ready to tune out the politicking and start checking references.
How to check references.
So how do you find reliable information about the candidates? The best source of information may be the candidate’s own voting record. This helpful guide is a good place to start for incumbents. For both incumbents and new applicants, it can be informative to run a search using this wording:
Fact check “Candidate Name In Quotation Marks”
Look for multiple sources. Be skeptical of sites where you find the exact same language over and over again, a telltale sign of AI. Be skeptical of headlines, images and videos that provoke such an immediate, visceral response you’re tempted to share without first looking for context. People tend to share things that make them angry. Maybe our neighbors don’t intend to spread misinformation. But the profit to be had in outrage flows right past them and us alike, and flows into someone else’s pockets. And when there’s profit in it, people are known to bend the truth or outright lie.
Character matters.
How many successful candidates spend all their time before a hiring committee trash-talking the other candidates? Do we want to hire someone who can’t explain their own positions without attacking the “other side”?
There was a time when voters expected their representatives to behave with honor while running for office, and while in office. To treat others with respect – even when they disagreed.
It’s unlikely that we will find many candidates with whom we agree on every issue all the time. That doesn’t even happen in our own homes, for Pete’s sake. But if character matters to us at all when choosing a partner in life, in business – even just for pickleball – then it should matter in choosing a representative of a district’s interests in federal government.
Sometimes we have to vote for the candidate we just can’t agree with on some things. The one with the annoying laugh but who understands the economy and the issues important in this district. The one prepared to show up and do the job of providing checks and balances, even when that’s contrary to directives from party, pundits and donors.
Many eligible voters find excuses for not showing up at the polls, then blame others or the system for the fine mess we’re in. But the system is built on us, on our participation. When the hiring committee meets on November 3, we get another chance to do better than some of the dubious choices our districts have made in recent years. Let’s choose well this time.
Donna Kallner writes from Langlade County in rural northern Wisconsin.
This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.