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Congressman drinking while voting on government shutdown?

    by Rob Tornoe, External or Unknown
    Published 

As Republicans spent hours on the floor of the House early Sunday morning, Capitol Hill reporters noticed members may have found a way to pass the time - drinking.

As noted by the Huffington Post, reporters for Politico and Buzzfeed tweeted they saw and smelled several Congressmen laying a few back while debate raged on the House floor.

Ginger Gibson, a politics reporter for Politico, tweeted from the House:

I'm not over exaggerating when I say I can smell the booze wafting from members as they walk off the floor.
For all those asking for names, sorry, I didn't get close enough to figure out the source of the smell.

Gibson's suspicions were confirmed by Kate Nocera, Buzzfeed's Capitol Hill reporter:

I def saw more than 1 member of congress putting a few back on Penn earlier. Ran into 2 in the liquor store.

This isn't the first time members of Congress were caught inbibing during and after a heated session. According to The Huffington Post, Democrats did a good deal of boozing themselves following the tense passage of the Affordable Health Care Act back in 2010. Some drank inside the Capitol, while others took their drinking to The Tune Inn, a dive bar a couple blocks away.