Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday slammed Democrats in the U.S. Senate for allowing Sen. John Fetterman to dress like a refugee from a pickup basketball game.
Axios reported on Sunday that Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer “quietly has directed the Senate’s Sergeant at Arms to no longer enforce the chamber’s informal dress code for its members.”
The move allows the sloppy Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, to wear his trademark hoodie sweatshirts, gym shorts and sneakers while conducting Senate business.
Fetterman, as the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, is the Senate’s “most casually dressed member.”
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That’s because Fetterman has donned his athletic gear ever since he returned to his job shortly after a weeks-long bout with clinical depression, which affected him almost immediately upon taking office in January. That came after he suffered a stroke while campaigning in 2022, a partially debilitating event that hinders Fetterman’s speech.
Once back at work, the freshman senator routinely wore such clothes while in the halls of the Senate, and took advantage of a Senate rule that allowed him to vote while dressed as such, so long as he set just one foot on the floor.
Axios noted that Schumer’s pronouncement — so far — has not been issued in writing.
At a press conference on Monday in Jacksonville, DeSantis hammered Democrats for relaxing the rules.
The Senate, he said, “just eliminated its dress code because you got this guy from Pennsylvania — who’s got a lot of problems, let’s be just be honest — like how he got elected, well he got elected because they didn’t like the alternative — he wears, like, sweatshirts and hoodies and shorts. That’s his thing.”
“But to show up in the United States Senate with that, and not have the decency to put on proper attire, I think it’s disrespectful to the body,” said DeSantis.
“I think the fact that the Senate changed the rules to accommodate that speaks very poorly,” he added.
“We need to be lifting up our standards in this country, not dumbing down our standards in this country. This is an example why.”
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