“How in the world can members of Congress really know and understand the burden it puts on America, when it doesn’t even have to live under the law itself?”

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, makes an excellent point.

The Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings demeaned the Congress and the country, but they also were instructive for America:

U.S. residents were reminded of how their Congress, so aggressive in its efforts to regiment and control the actions of the public, has conveniently left senators and House members off the list of people covered by social legislation.

Laws regulating sexual harassment, Social Security, workplace safety, even civil rights and job discrimination, consistently exempt only one category of American, members of Congress, from coverage.

This double standard places Congress in double jeopardy with the public.

It creates the impression that members of the House and Senate are a higher, separate class of people.

It puts greater distance between members of Congress and the people they represent.

Sen. Grassley and others would begin remediation with the civil rights bill now being considered. Congress wasn’t covered by the last one, in 1964. This time, it would be under the same legal umbrella as the rest of the country.

In the House, Rep. Olympia Snowe has signed on to similar legislation, but it goes a step further, making Congress subject to all the laws it passes and eliminating the reduced-price and free services available to Congress.

Currently, members of Congress get free medical and dental care and ambulance service, inexpensive meals and trips to the beauty salon.

Average Americans have to pay full price for similar services back home, while they subsidize the impressive lifesytles of people being paid more than $120,000 a year to serve them in Washington.

It is unacceptable. It is changing. It is about time.