Congress Passes Historic Bill Requiring All Politicians To Wear Dunce Caps Proportional To Their Confidence Level

WASHINGTON D.C. — In what political analysts are calling 'the most self-aware legislation in American history,' Congress passed a sweeping new bill Thursday requiring all elected officials to wear pointed dunce caps whose height directly corresponds to how certain they sound when discussing topics they clearly know nothing about.

The Congressional Hat Accountability and Proportional Intelligence Act, or CHAPIA, sailed through both chambers with a 435-0 vote in the House and a 100-0 vote in the Senate, marking only the third unanimous vote in congressional history and the first one that immediately caused seventeen senators to be fitted for six-foot hats before they even left the chamber.

'We ran the numbers and frankly, the hats are going to be enormous,' said Dr. Patricia Wembleton, a political scientist at Georgetown University who helped draft the legislation. 'We're talking structurally reinforced headgear. We've already been in contact with aerospace engineers.'

Under the new law, each congressional office will be equipped with a 'Confidence Detection System,' a proprietary algorithm developed by MIT researchers that monitors speech patterns, eyebrow raises, and the specific tone politicians use when they say 'I'm glad you asked that question' to determine real-time certainty levels. The corresponding hat size will then be transmitted wirelessly to a motorized dunce cap worn at all times during official duties.

Representative Todd Burchwell of Ohio, who accidentally triggered the prototype system during a press conference about cryptocurrency regulation while describing blockchain as 'basically just a very long receipt,' was observed wearing a hat measuring approximately four feet, seven inches before aides rushed to cut the feed.

'I actually think this brings much-needed transparency to the process,' said Senate Majority Leader Diane Hoffstead, whose hat during that very statement extended three feet above her head and knocked over a nearby microphone stand. 'The American people deserve to know— oh come on, seriously?'

The legislation includes several notable provisions, including a 'Bipartisan Exemption Clause' that automatically doubles hat size whenever a politician claims to be speaking 'on behalf of all Americans,' and a special emergency alert system that triggers foghorns in the Capitol rotunda whenever anyone uses the phrase 'I've done my research' about a topic they encountered forty minutes ago on social media.

Lobbyists have reportedly already begun negotiating hat subsidies, while the American Millinery Association issued a statement calling the bill 'the single greatest economic opportunity for the hat industry since Abraham Lincoln.'

Not everyone is celebrating. Former Senator Gary Pickens, who retired in 2022, expressed concern from his home in Scottsdale. 'This sets a dangerous precedent,' said Pickens, who once spent forty-five minutes explaining how the internet works to a room full of software engineers. 'Next thing you know, they'll want us to wear big red noses when we make promises we can't keep.' He paused. 'Actually, don't print that. I just gave them an idea.'

The White House has not yet commented on whether the President will sign the bill, though sources report that a measuring tape was spotted near the Oval Office early Friday morning.