U.S. Congress Honors Joe (Updated)

Congress voted 417-3 yesterday to honor JoePa on his 400th win! Rep. Glenn Thompson introduced the resolution, which was co-sponsored by everyone in the Pennsylvania delegation. Senator Casey has introduced a similar resolution in the U.S. Senate.

The bill is worth reading because it recognizes other Paternoesque virtues along with the 400 wins. Also, it is three pages long, not 2,000 like some earmark laden bills. Full text of H.R. 1715.

Aside from the 15 who did not vote, to whom we’ll give the benefit of the doubt, who would vote against such an innocuous resolution? Following are three naysayers, who should be enshrined in the Congressional Hall of Shame (I’ve added some stuff since the original post—new annotations are in red):

• Louise Slaughter (D, NY)
• Peter DeFazio (D, OR) – Sour grapes from 1995 Rose Bowl? DeFazio worked as a gerontologist, so perhaps he thinks 84 year-olds should not be coaching football?
• Jason Chaffetz (R, UT) – Interesting factoid dug up by reader Maddy — Chaffetz was the place kicker on the 1989 Brigham Young football team which Penn State trounced in the Holiday Bowl 50-39. He kicked two chip shot field goals and three extra points. Perhaps he thought that Joe ran up the score, although the game was in doubt until the last couple of minutes. FURTHER UPDATE: Got a tweet from Nathan Mills stating that Chaffetz votes against all such minor legislative resolutions because he believes that they’re a waste of the public treasury.

I can understand that DeFazio’s constituents never got over the Rose Bowl loss Penn State handed the Ducks in 1995, and ditto for Chaffetz’s for the great Holiday Bowl win over BYU. But what is New York pissed off about?

If we start seeing more of this type of thing (i.e., the legislative equivalent of a “lifetime achievement award”, could it represent the handwriting on the wall with respect to Joe’s retirement? Rumors are flying that the Michigan State game will be his Beaver Stadium swan song.