John Kerry hasn't been doing the job he was elected to do, having missed 292 (or a whopping 64%) of the votes in 2003. In 2004, he has already missed 22 Senate votes. Despite doing very little work over the past 14 months, Kerry has collected all of his paychecks, and that has some conservative groups ticked off.

A U.S. senator is permitted to be absent from his duties when there is a serious illness by the elected official or an immediate family member.

The law clearly states that if a senator fails to meet this requirement and is not present in the Senate chambers while it is in session, then a portion of his pay must be taken away from him.

Despite this, the Senate secretary has not been deducting any of Kerry's pay while he has been absent from his duties in the Senate.

When approached by the American Conservative Union about enforcing the law, the Senate Secretary claimed that previous secretaries had not upheld the law, and that she wasn't about to start. The ACU plans to sue to force the Secretary to do her job and dock Kerry's pay.

Now this may be nitpicking a bit. After all, the only ones who really have a valid complaint are the residents of Taxachusetts that aren't being provided proper representation. Personally, there are about 20 other Senators I'd like to see not showing up for work. But I will admit that if they are not going to enforce the law, then the Senate should at least remove it from the books.