[dllthomas]

Posturing, advertising, showing that you are doing something and it's everyone else standing in your way. Of course, that's only weakly grounded in reality, but maybe still worth doing from an electoral standpoint.

It's discussed a bit here: https://theconstitutionalist.org/2021/01/27/from-insincere-v...

On a more credulous note, it may also be valuable from a deliberative perspective to have these discussions in the body even if they don't result in change in the short term. That's undermined by the fact that the chamber is often pretty empty during debate, and that members of congress (and their staffs) can talk outside of the chamber, but it may still have an element of truth to it.