Congress Refuses to Read Bills Before Voting

[smoothmoniker]

This is from CNS, which is a far-right news blog, but the point they are making is pretty valid, I think. They want congress to agree to two things:

1) For every voting member of congress to pledge to read proposed legislation before voting on it, and

2) For all proposed legislation to be make publicly available for 72 hours before a vote may be called.

The first one might be difficult, but let's remember that these people are paid professionals, and they are being paid to represent our interests in their voting. They aren't being paid to sit back and enjoy the prestige of their position.

The second one seems so simple, and so obvious. It will increase the transparency of government, it will give the public a chance to voice their concerns over pork-barrel amendments BEFORE they are passed, and it will increase the accountability of our representatives to the people they are purported to represent. I realize those are all of the same reason why congress would never agree to it.

[smoothmoniker]

Oops. Sorry, here's the actual link:

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/conten...x?RsrcID=50677

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.

“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.

Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote.

[joelnwil]

Don't forget that the Texas State Legislature once voted a commendation for Albert DeSalvo because of his novel methods of population control. Albert DeSalvo was known, except to them, as the Boston Strangler. The bill was introduced to test the intelligence of the Legislature.

But that was Texas.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

This is from CNS, which is a far-right news blog, but the point they are making is pretty valid, I think.

That doesn't invalidate the point. We could have used it during the GOP's saddle time. We're basically dealing with two criminal organizations, transparency is about the best we could hope for. Even a pledge that staff would read through bills would improve things.

[glatt]

Is the proposal to read every bill before voting for it or before voting either for or against it?

[Happy Monkey]

I think the best we can hope is that the Congress's staffs read it. I do support the 72 hour rule, though.

[TheMercenary]

I have very low expectations that any of these changes could occur in todays Congress.

[ZenGum]

I voss elected to leeeeead, not to reeeeeead.



I like the idea of the proposal, but some of those bills are well over 1,000 pages, and couched in all sorts of cross-referenced hokey legalese, so (1) reading it in 72 hours is nigh on impossible and (2) a single reading won't reveal all the quirky loopholes in it.

Still, it sounds like a step forward.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

II like the idea of the proposal, but some of those bills are well over 1,000 pages, and couched in all sorts of cross-referenced hokey legalese, so (1) reading it in 72 hours is nigh on impossible and (2) a single reading won't reveal all the quirky loopholes in it..

Pelosi planed that you would have that response. Along with all the other apathetic Americans.

[Aliantha]

I don't know what the situation is like for your congressmen, but over here, every MP has a number of advisors who are employed to do things like read bills and then tell the MP what it's all about in simple terms, simply because the advisors are experts in the particular field while the MP may or may not have any experience what so ever in the particular field he or she is appointed to manage.

[FuglyStick]

Part 1 is reasonable, part 2 is not. Government does not need micromanagement from the electorate--that's what they are elected to do.

[TheMercenary]

Government should not run Banks, Auto Companies, or Insurance industries either. Nor should they be in charge of your health care.

To late....

[richlevy]

I remember two bills with amendments, one having to do with artists defaulting to 'work for hire' in studio contracts and another one allowing non-organic chicken to be labeled as organic, that noone admitted to reading before voting. The two very controversial amendments had to be repealed days after being enacted.

In the case of the anti-musician bill, the legislative aide who inserted the amendment was hired by the recording industry.

The 'fake organic' bill was opposed by everyone except the dumbass constituent who suggested it to his equally dumbass Congressman. It would have cost organic poultry producers billions in lost revenue when domestic and worldwide customers lost faith in any 'organic' label on US poultry.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Making them all read the bill, before voting it up or down, would probably be a waste of time, as I doubt they would understand what they read. That's why they have (trusted?) staff to tell them what these bills say and how they would really work in the real world.

Then after the straight dope is obtained from the staff, it is balanced against the booty offered by lobbyists, the pressure from the party whip, and how long to the next re-election campaign.

It's not easy being slick.

[chrisinhouston]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Government should not run Banks, Auto Companies, or Insurance industries either. Nor should they be in charge of your health care.

To late....

So, following that thought, do you classify Medicare, Medicaid and the medical services of the Veterans Administration as wrong and they should not exist?

And along that line, the government probably should have never gotten involved in overseeing voting procedures in individual states or in saying which kids should go to what schools but because of so many abuses in the past they had to.

I'm tired of the argument that a right to health care does not exist in the US Constitution. When the Constitution was ratified the average life expectancy was quite low for the colonists, many children (and birth mothers) died at birth or not long after and doctors were still using leaches and other barbaric practices to treat many ailments.