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The 111th Congress is about to be sworn in and get to work. Their "to do" list is enormous-a mega-financial crisis, the war in Iraq, the bloody conflict in the Middle East. Under the circumstances it's understandable that the top matter on the agenda won't be long-standing legislation to make it easier for women in the workplace to breastfeed their babies.
That's all fine and well. But when you use the Sunlight Foundation's newly revamped Capitol Words tool to see what Congress spends its time talking about, you see that the issue of breastfeeding always gets short shrift, no matter what. Yet the American Academy of Pediatrics strongly urges women to breastfeed their babies exclusively for six months and beyond if possible, estimating increased breastfeeding could save $3.6 billion in health costs; 60 percent of women 16 and over participate in the workforce; and any woman who has tried to keep up breastfeeding while working knows how tough it is.
Capitol Words works as a kind of zeitgeist-meter, showing what words members of Congress speak on the House and Senate floors as printed in the Congressional Record. Do a search on "breastfeeding" and you see that the word hardly ever shows up-the most mentions were 22 in May 2004. Then use Capitol Words' handy dandy comparison function to compare mentions of "breastfeeding" with "energy" and you see that lawmakers' "energy" mentions rise to the level of tens of thousands per month. Not so shocking.
But why is it that lawmakers find it so much more compelling to talk about "golf" than "breastfeeding"? Why does "salmon" get so many more mentions? Lawmakers talk more about "indemnity", "fishing", and "fences". Do you know what "cellulosic" means? (Says dictionary.com, it's anything derived from cellulose.) Lawmakers apparently find it a more fascinating topic than breastfeeding.
Capitol Words can bring illumination on all sorts of Congressional behavior. You can look up your representative in Congress and see what he or she talks the most about. My own representative, Rep. Diana Degette (D-CO), likes to talk about "health." The most talkative member of my state's delegation is Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO), recently nominated by President-elect Barack Obama to be Secretary of the Interior. His top words? "Colorado," "oil," and "energy." You can see what is the most commonly mentioned word on any given day here. And you can look up the most popular words of the year, month, week, or day. Consider Capitol Words to be a way to follow the circumlocutions of lawmakers in Congress-and to hold them accountable.
