WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. Dale Hutchins (R-OH), who has voted in person on 26% of House floor votes since January, introduced legislation Tuesday requiring a mandatory 60-second moment of silent prayer before each recorded vote, calling it “the single most important reform this body could undertake.”

The bill, titled the Congressional Reverence and Accountability in Prayer Act, would require all members to be physically present in the chamber during the prayer period, a logistical detail Hutchins’ staff acknowledged had not been fully considered.

“Washington has lost its soul,” Hutchins told reporters outside the Capitol, having arrived from a fundraiser at a steakhouse four blocks away. “We need to slow down, be still, and ask God what we’re doing here. That is precisely why I filed this bill and immediately left for a two-week district work period.”

“We need to slow down, be still, and ask God what we’re doing here.”

The bill has attracted two co-sponsors, both of whom also rank in the bottom quartile of attendance for the current session. House leadership from both parties declined to schedule a committee hearing, with one senior aide describing the proposal as “logistically self-defeating.”

Eleanor Voss, 61, a legislative director who has worked on Capitol Hill for 22 years, said the bill had not been assigned to a committee as of Thursday. “Technically it’s in the queue,” she said. “Most things are.”

At press time, the House chamber was conducting a recorded vote that Hutchins missed by four minutes, having paused in the hallway to explain the importance of his prayer bill to a C-SPAN camera crew.