Congress sounding increasingly like teenagers, study says

[lafinjack]

If it sounds like the debates in Congress have devolved to that of teenagers, it’s because they have

Comments

[leprofessional]

"Congress speaks on a 10th grade level.
The average American speaks at a 8th grade level."
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/05/21/congressional-speech/

Is this negative though, when the public speaks at the same level?

In town halls/direct democracy approach the language is going to be even simpler.
In highly hierarchical (for example old monarchies) the language of governance was more 'educated'.

Edit: Informative graph

[qable]

Your graph makes me wonder what happened to switch things in 2006-2007.

[dumpweeds]

maybe that's when obama started campaigning and the whargarble was at an all time high?

[schexyschteve]

2006 - Democrats won a ton of seats in Congress; Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House

The Bubba Gap

[saint_monkey]

I don't think we lost all the erudite republicans in the tea party revolution... But I do think that this is indicative of the Republican ability to present a unified front. It's my guess that the rank and file Republican began to notice the attention that the "Straight talk express" got out there in the base. They were attacking Obama for being elitist, shopping at Whole Foods, and eating strange things like arugula. So naturally there would be a move to "dumb it down" to appear more like the guy you'd have a beer with on the Republican side. I think this chart is just an illustration of the Republicans following the play book.

[luminescnece]

I think a six year graph for this isn't really enough data to even begin speculating about the causes of this all... :/

[rkt]

The average American speaks at a 8th grade level.

it actually surprises me that, from a stategy standpoint, the state of the union would be *at* average level and maybe not just slightly under.