Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut have jointly introduced a bill that is aimed at putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his illegal war on Ukraine. Under the legislation, sanctions would be imposed on Russia if it “refuses to engage in good faith negotiations for a lasting peace with Ukraine or initiates another effort, including military invasion, that undermines the sovereignty of Ukraine after peace is negotiated.” The primary and secondary sanctions proposed in the legislation would include a 500-percent tariff on goods imported to the U.S. from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium, and other products.

As of last week Thursday, the Graham-Blumenthal bill reportedly had 80 co-sponsors in the Senate. Because many congressional proceedings are covered on live television nowadays, it is quite possible that this particular legislation has been discussed in that medium. The problem is that ordinary Americans like me would have missed the fine details, since such debates often take place during periods when we are busy at work. One recent major deliberation in Congress took place at an even more inconvenient time, around 2:30 a.m. The vast majority of us were likely unconscious at that hour. Even one person who was supposed to be wide awake and actively participating in that proceeding, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, failed to register his vote because he fell asleep.

To be better informed about which of our lawmakers favor or oppose any legislation, such as the one introduced by Senators Graham and Blumenthal, people like me need help from someone whose primary job it is to follow these proceedings, day and night. Knowing who voted for or against a bill, and their reasons for doing so, is essential information for us as citizens because we are periodically expected to make sound decisions about the people we send to Washington. We cannot properly grade our representatives and reward them with reelection, or banish them, if we don’t have a full picture of the quality of their judgments.

The people primarily responsible for keeping us adequately informed about such local and national issues are the media. That is what New York Times columnist David Brooks meant when he wrote that news outlets exist to “advance public understanding.” I argued recently that largely, the media does a rather poor job in that regard.

In his recent Washington Post article about the Graham-Blumenthal sanctions legislation, columnist George Will did something marvelous, demonstrating what proper journalism should look like. He meticulously provided a breakdown of the senators who voted for and against the bill, and their party affiliation. According to him, of the 82 sponsors, there are 41 Republicans, 40 Democrats and one independent who caucuses with the Democrats. Among the 18 who did not co-sponsor the bill are 12 Republicans, five Democrats and one independent who caucuses with the Democrats. Will listed all 18 by name and then posed two simple but extremely important questions to them. First: “What are you thinking?” Second: “And why do you want to be senators?”

Ideally, some television journalist should follow Will’s excellent lead and invite a handful of the fence-sitting senators, one or two from each party, for a live interview. They should be asked on camera to explain their reasons for not co-sponsoring the bill. The interviewer should then inquire whether any of them have read this recent Washington Post column about the elaborate measures that Poland, a NATO member and U.S. ally, is having to take to protect itself from Putin’s Russia.

Inexplicably, there are too many of our elected officials in Washington who either appear to be clueless about the Russian menace and its wider impacts, or are too nonchalant about them. A victorious Putin in Ukraine would become so emboldened that he would start threatening the smaller Baltic states and others such as Finland and Poland. That is why those neighbors of Russia are extremely nervous about the developments in Ukraine. If Russia were to prevail in the current war, it would also provide a great deal of encouragement to America’s main adversary, China, which has made no secret of its ambition to forcibly conquer Taiwan. Such a chain of events is one that no high-ranking public official in our nation’s capital should want to be responsible for helping to set off.

It is quite gratifying to see that an overwhelming majority of senators understand what is at stake in Ukraine. George Will deserves enormous credit for providing exactly the kind of information the general public needs regularly to hold its elected officials accountable. Those 18 senators should better be readying their answers to those two simple but probing questions posed by the consummate journalist.