The Business of Standing in Line

[marmar]

from truthdig:


The Business of Standing in Line

Posted on Jun 5, 2013
By Thomas Hedges, Center for Study of Responsive Law


Eric Hopkins paced up and down a hallway in the Dirksen Senate Office Building two weeks ago in front of 25 people who were standing in line for a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Few of them knew what the public hearing was about. That’s because they were hired by LineStanding.com, which paid them to reserve spots for lawyers, lobbyists, union members and anyone else willing to spend $32 an hour to secure a place in line. Hopkins works for the company as a coordinator. He makes sure that the line standers show up because if they are late, the company could lose spots, especially if the hearing is popular.

The business of line standing got some attention in March when The New York Times mentioned the practice in a piece about people trying to get tickets to watch the Supreme Court’s oral arguments on same-sex marriage. The mainstream media writes about line standing every few years, but only during landmark cases and hearings. The truth is that line standing goes on much of the time. It happens almost every day on Capitol Hill and some people are worried that it has weakened the influence the public has on committee hearings.

Line standing “verges on the absurd,” Hopkins concedes. “The German, Japanese, Aussie (press)—they love us because they think this is crazy, because it is crazy.”

Hopkins is cynical about the purpose of the business. But others see it as more than absurd—it’s malicious, they contend. It shuts out regular folk from what are supposed to be public hearings, they argue, while allowing big businesses and law firms to overrun them with their own people. ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_business_of_standing_in_line_20130605/?ln

[Myrina]

1. Hey! A job my college education qualified me for!

If I learned nothing else in 4 years at the U of WI, it was how to wait in line (& mult-task before the days of smartphones, kindles and laptops).