Covid 19 impasse: Why architects need to know how a member of the US Congress must be expelled by the end of the month and how that relates to building emergency housing at a time when its absence is deadly and dangerous

“A nation divided against itself cannot stand,” Abraham Lincoln said in New York City in a speech that many believe resulted in his receiving the hotly contested Republican nomination

Whatever do Congress’s rules to your architecture practice? Seek and you shall find. Until then, trust be that this is relevant: “The Constitution empowers both the House and the Senate to expel a sitting Member who engages in “disorderly Behaviour,” requiring a two-thirds vote of those present and voting in the chamber to which the Member belongs.”

The substantive issue here is the question of whether poverty leads to crime (as Rep. Cortex believes as opposed to Rep. Ted Yaho of Florida who assets that cause is irrelevant police must be given the resources and authority to put down crime.

The contrast between these two positions has become a major political issue in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, currently in jail charged with second degree murder. The non-violent protests and the very violent rioting that has dominated the landscape of cities in America this spring and summer. This protest in the wake of Covid-19 deaths in Detroit showing that blacks in Mic die from the virus at three times the rate of whites has focused on the importance of constructing emergency housing so the most volunerable in our society preventably do not conract the virus, spread it, and die from it.

Having worked as a political appointee to President Jimmy Carter, a consultant to Congress, and a speech writer to Democratic and Republican Chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission, I can tell you that in Washington DC if you want to get things done rarely is the shortest distance between two points a straight line.

In a House floor speech, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., details the offensive comments used by Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., during a Monday incident outside the Capitol.This is my second posting today of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’ speech on abuse of civility and power by a fellow member of Congress who is obliged by the rules of the House of Representatives to treat his colleagues, including Ocasio-Cortez with courtesy and respect.This is the nearly 11 minute version of her speech under the Capitol dome–a speech that will appear for generations– a model of correct behavior in a time when being controversial does not mean one being uncivil. Thanks to CSPAN the obscenity hurled against her is heard rather than blipped out as in the shorter ABC version.Rep. Yoho;s failure to act like what I regard as how a man should behave falls short. I request that the Speaker introduce expulsion proceedings against Rep. Yoho.Readers please react instantly, Go to your representative in the House’s website, enter your nine-digit zip code in her or his contact form and demand a vote to expel a member of Congress who refuses to be a gentleman. You do not have to agree with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez to be appalled by how she has been treated.