Congress Passes Landmark Bill Requiring All Political Speeches To Be Delivered In A Bouncy Castle

WASHINGTON D.C. — In what political analysts are calling the most significant legislative achievement in modern American history, Congress passed the Political Transparency and Structural Integrity Act on Thursday, a sweeping bill that requires all elected officials to deliver public speeches, press conferences, and filibuster attempts exclusively from within a certified bouncy castle.

The bill, which passed 418-12 in the House and 94-6 in the Senate, was signed into law Friday morning by a visibly emotional President, who delivered his signing remarks while gently bobbing up and down in a 400-square-foot inflatable structure shaped like a medieval fortress, complete with turrets and a drawbridge.

'The American people deserve to see their leaders as they truly are,' said Senate Majority Leader Patricia Holloway (D-CT), pausing to regain her footing after a particularly aggressive bounce. 'And what we truly are, apparently, is people who cannot maintain a consistent altitude while discussing foreign policy.'

The legislation came after a Stanford University study found that public trust in politicians increased by 340 percent when test subjects watched lawmakers attempt to maintain senatorial gravitas while involuntarily launching themselves two feet into the air. Lead researcher Dr. Marcus Finch called the findings 'staggering.'

'There is something neurologically profound about watching a man in a $4,000 suit try to point sternly at a chart while his legs are doing something completely different than he intends,' said Dr. Finch, who has reportedly requested federal funding for a follow-up study titled 'What If They Also Had Foam Pit Access.'

Not everyone is celebrating. The bill's twelve dissenting votes came primarily from legislators who expressed concern about 'the dignity of the office,' though critics note that three of those twelve had previously been photographed eating corn dogs at state fairs with a level of enthusiasm that already called that argument into question.

Representative Donald Fitch (R-TX), who voted against the measure, held a press conference outside the Capitol to voice his opposition, inadvertently standing next to a children's birthday party where a different bouncy castle was in operation, forcing him to shout over the gleeful screaming of several eight-year-olds in a moment observers described as 'poetic.'

'This is an affront to everything this institution stands for,' Fitch yelled into his microphone as a child in a dinosaur costume sailed past behind him.

The logistics of implementation have raised additional questions. C-SPAN has already ordered seventeen new cameras specifically angled to capture what a network spokesperson described as 'the full gravitational chaos of democracy in action.' The State of the Union address, now just six weeks away, will require a bouncy castle approximately the size of a regulation basketball court, which the General Services Administration confirmed Thursday is, and they cannot stress this enough, absolutely something they can make happen.

In a related development, approval ratings for Congress have risen to 67 percent, the highest recorded since polling began, despite the fact that literally no policy has changed whatsoever.

'People just seem happier,' noted political scientist Dr. Renee Okafor of Georgetown University. 'Turns out the problem was never ideology. The problem was that nobody was bouncing.'

The first official bouncy castle address is scheduled for next Tuesday, when the Senate will debate the federal budget. Elbow pads are optional but encouraged.