A staple of Congressional life—and therefore of C-SPAN programming—is the quorum call. This constitutes a period of time when absolutely nothing is happening (by design)… so what do you do with that time on live TV? C-SPAN has come up with a clever solution:
What you’re seeing is Tweets from representatives and senators, streamed live onto the C-SPAN screen. Actually, what you’re seeing, specifically, is the moment close to midnight on Friday when news broke that the government wouldn’t shut down. It’s very cool to see the live reports and reactions from members of Congress. Quorum calls just got a lot more interesting!