Article snippet: Here’s the secret C-SPAN’s cameras don’t let us in on about how Congress works: When the House gets together to debate a bill, it’s a staid affair. You have a handful of lawmakers giving speeches in a near-empty House floor chamber, save for House clerks and a handful of staff members who aren’t really listening. But Wednesday was different. Wednesday was like the movie-version House of Representatives. It’s that rare day when the House chamber is nearly full during debate. Lawmakers lined up, one by one, to give one-minute speeches about why they supported or opposed the question before them, whether to impeach President Trump. They talked to a chamber filled with their colleagues, who themselves were waiting for their turn to debate. This is as close as we get to the fantasized version of the way Congress works: a body of people getting together to debate a consequential vote before taking that vote. One example of a dramatized version of Congress comes from the 2000 movie ‘‘The Contender,’’ in which the president of the United States, played by Jeff Bridges, marches down to Congress to give all 435 House lawmakers, who just happen to be in their seats, a lecture. Congress was more dramatic a couple of centuries ago. The 2012 film ‘‘Lincoln’’ features a debate in a much smaller House chamber that congressional procedure expert Sarah Binder wrote ‘‘captures what historians have conveyed about the often dramatic nature of congressional floor debates in the ninet... Link to the full article to read more