Carolina baseball resolution stuck in Senate

Commemorative resolutions are an every day part of life in an American legislative body. Usually they move through rather quickly and that’s that. In Congress, when a sports team wins a national championship, the usual thing to do is to have a resolution sponsored by a few people, there’s a little speechifying and the matter’s done. But not recently in the U.S. Senate, and not for the national champion Carolina baseball team.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham sponsored the legislation in the upper chamber to congratulate the team after a similar resolution, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, made it out of the House (though the AP article mentions a “nasty floor fight”). But this one isn’t moving, not one bit.

“It’s one thing to not be able to do the big things which are hard, like reforming Social Security,” Graham said. “But it’s quite another to not be able to do the simple, appropriate and easy things like recognizing a team for winning a national championship.”

As the article points out, other resolutions from other senators are holed up in committee too, for the reason that it appears a small number of legislators seem to have some PTSD from getting picked last for kickball and are taking it out on successful athletes. Measures recognizing Alabama‘s 2009 football national championship (Richard Shelby, R-Ala.), Duke’s 2009-2010 men’s basketball national championship (Richard Burr, R-N.C.) and LSU’s 2009 baseball national championship (Mary Landrieu, D-La.) are going nowhere, along with resolutions dealing with NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson and S.C. golfer Lucas Glover.

Really. There’s petty, and then there’s OMG SOOOOOOOOO PETTY.