Senator Mullin Returns to Congress After Busy Oklahoma Recess

With Congress getting back to work this month, members of the state's delegation are heading back to Washington after what proved to be a very busy month 'off' in Oklahoma.

Now a United States Senator, Markwayne Mullin's 'district' is now all of the state, and he says he saw quite a bit of it during the August recess.

"We were all over the state," he said, "I mean, it was great."

Sen. Mullin (R-OK) says everywhere he and his staff went, the main thing people wanted to talk about was the economy.

"If you’re running a cow-calf operation, a farm, a retail [shop], convenience stores, or service companies," Mullin said in an interview Wednesday. "You are facing certain challenges that you didn’t have two years ago."

Inflation has come down significantly in the last 15 months, and unemployment in Oklahoma is at an all-time low (2.7%), but Mullin says people told him over and over that they still feel uncertain about the economy.

Meanwhile, there's no uncertainty about the standing of Oklahoma's military bases, which Mullin visited with Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"Everywhere we went, we also did a meeting with community leaders, too," Mullin explained, "and all of them just had an outpouring of support for the base in their area, and [Sen. Wicker] says that is so unique."

Mullin says Oklahomans, in general, seem to appreciate what he and the rest of the delegation are doing -- it's DC politics they don't get.

"It didn’t make any difference where I was," Mullin said, "you always got the question, 'Why can’t you all get along?'"

Mullin says he always tells people the Founding Fathers didn't intend for the members of Congress to all get along, only to commit to the Democratic process.

"It is designed to work almost dysfunctional," Mullin remarked, "until you can find a consensus."

It seems a given some of that dysfunction will be on display in the coming weeks as Congress tries to decide how to fund the government for the coming year -- the question is, how long will it take to find a consensus.