Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., is challenging one of Speaker-designate Bob Livingston's ideas for improving House operations-the five-day work week.
"You can't be in Washington five days a week and service your district," Kingston told the Associated Press in an interview. "I'm just enough of a populist to believe that the real action is on the streets of America and not in Washington."
Kingston has gotten 65 GOP colleagues to sign a petition urging Livingston not to change the three-day-a-week schedule that was typical during Speaker Newt Gingrich's final year. Livingston floated the idea of a five-day work week in a letter to Gingrich last month.
Kingston said he has sent Livingston the results of a survey of members following the hectic first 100 days of the 104th Congress, when Republicans pushed through their "Contract With America." Four freshmen in that Congress ended up divorced, Kingston said, and countless others reported family problems that they blamed on the long legislative sessions.
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