Does Steny Hoyer have any idea how comments like this come across to normal people?
“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.
In fact, Hoyer found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. “I’m laughing because a) I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,” he said.
So, therefore, it’s not reasonable to expect people to read it. Right.
I have an radical idea. How about shorter bills?
[Update a few minutes later]
I think that this would be an item for a new Republican Contract with America.
[Update mid afternoon]
I have an radical idea. How about shorter bills?
And leave the details to the executive branch, or the judiciary? That would be radical.
I think that this would be an item for a new Republican Contract with America.
I don’t think the GOP, or any party, could keep such a promise.
Yes it’s not like the US gov has ever used short documents. Can’t think of a one. Certianly not something core and important to the operation of the government and the limitations of its powers.
Nope, no brevity to be found here.
And nice to see when Jim is given the choice between people voting on something they can acutally read, leat alone understand, and not.
He picks… Strawman!
Used to be only the penumbra was long…
Rand, I think this idea will really resonate. I can’t imagine any counter argument to the idea that a bill must be recorded 72 hours before it comes up for a vote. Even that length of time seems trivially short for bills that run to hundreds of pages. I don’t know how you can enforce a rule requiring legislators to actually read what they vote on (I have people for that!), but you can shame them into it. Hoyer is completely out of touch on this. It is the perfect symbol of how large and intrusive the federal government has become. If they don’t have time to read the legislation they pass, there is clearly way too much legislation being passed.
I am afraid that, given the size of the government today, a requirement for shorter bills would only cede more power to the permanent bureaucracy.
However, what might be interesting would be to require the GAO or some other reasonably independent office to analyze the draft legislation and prepare a short multiple-choice quiz about the basic intent and effects of the bill, and require that the congressmen take the exam (not having seen it beforehand) and get a least a 70% correct score to be able to vote for it. If they fail the test, the vote is recorded as a no.
Yeah, fat chance, but it be an amusing item for a new Contract With America. You listening, Sarah?
I disagree Rand. I do support shorter bills, but I don’t capping bill size is reasonable. However, if there is time to write the bill before it becomes law, then there is time to read the bill. Debate should not be less than the time needed to read the bill.
We don’t need to provide a backdoor filibuster to a Congressmen who wants to feign illiteracy (or actually be illiterate, since there is nothing prohibiting such). But we the people can demand our politician reach a certain level of maturity and be responsible for bills they support. And if you plan to revamp 1/7th of the US economy with a large bill, then you ought to have read such a bill. Failure to read such a bill and supporting it with a yea vote should result in loss of your position in Congress.
In short, if Congress needs more time to read the bill, then it should take it.
One reason they are rushing through the bills is because they don’t want to read it and therefore be held accountable. They want plausible deniability of the such, “I didn’t know that was in there”. Since ignorance of the law is no defense for criminals, it shouldn’t be a defense for those writing the law.
The other reason they are rushing the bills through is to make the law common place before the people realize they are being stripped of simple liberties. Obama promised to end such practice with his sunshine platform of providing people 5 days to review such bills before his signature. Not only did Obama not enforce his platform on his party delegates in Congress, but he has already decided that his promise was too much for him to keep.
Shorter bills would make it harder for legislators to hide payoffs to their bribers (campaign contribution are just a legal form of bribery IMO). Massive pieces of legislation are not only great for corruption, they often are very poorly written leading to further legal problems down the road. An example was Waxman tacking another 300 pages onto the bogus climate change bill (already over a 1000 pages long before he did it) less than 24 hours before the House voted on it. I guarantee that no Representative had time to read and understand that crap and that was the intent.
If you think the United States Code is huge, peruse the Code of Federal Regulations. I’m not sure it’s possible to cede more power to the bureaucracy, short of abolishing Congress altogether.
“I’m not sure it’s possible to cede more power to the bureaucracy”
Interesting question. I have some experience with how legislative language and intent ends up being reflected (or not) in the ensuing chapters of the CFR. It ain’t pretty.
At any rate, we will be finding out how much more power can be ceded over the next thre and a half years. I suspect it will make pre-2008 America look like a libertarian utopia designed by Murray Rothbard and David Friedman.
No bill should be larger than can fit on the bribe used to get it passed.
I think the Republicans should walk out of congress unless and until adequate time is granted to digest and debate the bills.
Let the public see the Democratic Party Congressmen for what they are.
Fred, terrific idea. I think I’ll add that to my list of demands I’ll make of the RNC before I ever donate to them again.