As the House of Representatives concluded its stirring send-off of the now retired Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, House Speaker John Boehner took a moment to offer a nationally-televised reminder to members of how they should be dressed on the House floor.
“The chair would remind all members,” Boehner said Wednesday, “to be in proper business attire when you come to the floor of the House.”
It’s unclear who exactly he was referring to, but CBS’s Mark Knoller reported via Twitter that the message “was directed at a few House members not wearing ties on the House floor.”
Boehner has made his concern with fashion a staple of his time on Capitol Hill, frequently dressing down those who move about the halls of Congress for, well, dressing down.
“You need a shave and a haircut,” Boehner told an apparently unkempt Christian Borge, a reporter at Congress Daily in 2007. “What does your mother think?” Boehner pondered. Turning his attention to the Wall Street Journal’s David Rogers at that same event, he said, “You need a comb.”
When he’s not picking on poorly dressed reporters — which is really like shooting fish in a barrel — Boehner’s attire attention turns to his fellow House members.
In a December 2010 press conference, he knocked Utah Rep. Rob Bishop for wearing a pinstriped, three-piece suit to work. “I told Mr. Bishop on the way in that just because he inherited a suit from his grandfather,” quipped Boehner, “didn’t mean he had to wear it.”
“Members should wear appropriate business attire during all sittings of the House, however brief their presence on the floor might be,” Boehner reminded his colleagues on Monday, ahead of Tuesday’s State of the Union address. “You know who you are.”
And while there is certainly a delineation between lack of decorum and poor fashion sense, in John Boehner’s world, neither is acceptable.