Wouldn’t you like to have a job where you showed up for work only 78 percent of the time — a job where you hobnobbed with cultural elites in Hollywood and crisscrossed the country in private jets?

That’s the life of North Carolina’s “Part-Time Senator” John Edwards, now “officially” running for president.
Edwards has outgrown the little people of North Carolina. He now wants to be commander-in-chief of the world’s only superpower. In fact, the senator so wants to be the leader of the Free World that he has made the executive decision to send his presidential campaign chairman, Ed Turlington, to handle town meetings. Town meetings are historically where citizens gather to interact with their elected representatives to get an update on what is transpiring in Washington. This is also when “constituents” — a word foreign to Edwards — bring their problems and voice their concerns to their elected representatives.

I have met Turlington several times, and he seems like a nice guy. But with all due respect to Turlington, who elected him senator? Has Edwards spent so much time with the Hollywood elites that he has forgotten who hired him? Apparently so.

According to Edwards’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, “When there is a close vote, he will make it a priority to be there for it.” Yet the Charlotte Observer in an editorial June 18 wrote, “Edwards has missed some votes on important issues this year.”

Case in point. On May 5, Edwards wrote a letter to his Senate colleagues requesting support for an amendment to the energy bill to remove language that threatens existing moratoria that protects sensitive coastal and marine areas. “ I am leading an effort to prevent drilling for oil and natural gas off the Atlantic coast of North Carolina,” Edwards said. (Edwards’ press release 5/14/03)

However, when the Senate voted June 12 on the amendment, Edwards was absent. According to CNN, Edwards missed the vote because he was on his way to Nashville to “meet and greetTennessee Democrats.”
In fact, Edwards has missed 25 percent of the energy votes cast this session. This is a sad commentary on North Carolina’s “part-time senator.” Perhaps it’s time to invoke a little-known law that hasn’t been enforced since 1914. That is U.S. Code Title 32, Section 39, which says that “no show” lawmakers have to forfeit their salary for each day he or she is absent from the Senate or the House. The only excuse for not showing up is sickness of a member or of a member’s family.

Edwards has missed 22 percent of the votes cast this session. His salary is $154,700 a year. It has been calculated by the National Taxpayers Union that members owe $616.33 for every day they miss work. Now Edwards is running full time for president. Since that is the case, perhaps Edwards will do the right thing and return his full salary to the taxpayers.

If most North Carolinians took off work to look for another job, they wouldn’t be paid. Members of Congress, and particularly Edwards who has been blatantly absent in the Senate, should not get preferential treatment.

Edwards was elected senator for the citizens of North Carolina. He has been derelict in his duty, and he should forfeit his salary if he does not intend to show up for work and do the job that the citizens of North Carolina hired him to do.