by Nick Tomboulides
WASHINGTON, D.C — When 20-term Congressman Philip Flop took a brief break from his round of golf today to speak with press, he needed to be reminded by reporters that he actually represents the state of Illinois, not Hawaii as he had believed for the last decade. Flop’s frequent junkets to the Aloha State had been marked as “visiting with constituents” in the congressional travel log.
“It may seem like I’m working remote from Hawaii, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” Flop said. “I still spend considerable time meeting with lobbyists in Washington.”
Flop, who gets re-elected automatically with nearly 90 percent of the vote in his gerrymandered district, did say he found it odd that people from Illinois were constantly calling his office and asking him to fix things.
“I just told them they had the wrong number,” he grumbled.
David Bernier, a constituent of Flop’s, says he’s only seen the lawmaker once since moving into the Illinois district in 2003.
“He thought he was at another congressman’s campaign rally, and didn’t realize it was his own,” Bernier said. “We never saw him again after that.”
After the miscue, one reporter suggested to Flop that it might be time for retirement, or even term limits. At that point, the D.C. veteran got testy.
“We have term limits already; they’re called elections,” he frothed. “If the people of Honolulu get sick of me, they can always vote me out!”
Nick Tomboulides is the Executive Director of U.S. Term Limits