The practice seems to have been taken to an extreme in Congress with the pending “cap and trade” bill. [David Freddoso, D.C. Examiner]
The practice seems to have been taken to an extreme in Congress with the pending “cap and trade” bill. [David Freddoso, D.C. Examiner]
7 Comments
Why bother reading a bill that is mom and apple pie? After all, who could not be agaisnt global warming? At least 1000 of the 1090 pages of the bill are probably surplusage anyway, and the Managers’ amendment is of course only a minor clean-up.
In any event, the courts will fix any problems (after billions of dollars are committed). If the literal meanng of the words of the bill cannot be reconciled, then “Congressional intent” will be used to decipher its meaning. What a way to run a railraod!
I’m having flash backs to that phone commerical – what if fire fighters ran Congress. “A lot of paper here to see we need clean water. Who wants clean water? Yeah……”
Only in this case – the clowns in Congress whos job it is to actually read the crap, try and understand it and make a judgement of is this legislation necessary and correct are simply being lazy. They’re too lazy to do their jobs – read the bill, think about it and then, only then, vote on it.
It’d be nice if the voters held their members of congress to the same standards they hold us – ignorance of the law is no excuse. Or in their case, ignorance of what was in the bill is no excuse.
… good to remember this standard ‘vote-without-reading’ behavior — as Congressmen again set out on their luxury, taxpayer-funded, summer “Fact-Finding” junkets.
If Congressmen don’t have the time to even read the legislation they vote for — how can they possibly justify their normal practice … spending weeks of travel in terrible locations (e.g. Paris, Hawaii, Japan, Oman, etc.)… to supposedly gather information ?
This morning on Fox and Friends, they had an administration hack on, talking about the issue, and the blond guy (forgot his name) said (paraphrasing all of this), “One more question did you read it?”
She gives a long winded response.
“Yeah, but did you read it.”
“I read vast parts of it.”
“In other words, no.”
Made my morning.
I only have one question. Isn’t reading the bills something that we elect them to do? Why do we have elected officials if they don’t take time to read the bills they pass. Maybe elected offials are an anachronism. They are not doing their job for the people if they don’t even understand what they are voting on. What arrogance!
Some legislation is simple and easy to read: dedicating a post office, for example. Major regulation, like ERISA, is arcane. Legislators, being human, have to rely on lobbyists and staff for their information. What is important is to have some policing of the advisers. Mrs. Clinton, for example, swallowed hook, line, and sinker junk science about Ground Zero, Gulf War Syndrome, early childhood education, Ledbetter, etc. She is a twit! Her husband was almost as bad, although he was a very good president.
The bill- reading argument is silly, Mr. Olson. Putting Doctor Wolfe in our government is a real horror!
Speaking from experience, it seems clear to me that the lobbyist and legislators working on the bills in which I have been involved have little regard for the policy choices their decisions represent. The focus seems to “how will it affect this particular constituent”, rather than “how will these changes drive citizen behavior/what acts will this legislation incentive/de-incentivize.”
When I read court decisions where judges discuss “legislative intent” and “policy”, I am always left wondering how much real world interaction they have had with legislators in the bill drafting process… Still, if the job of a legislator is to legislate, I don’t believe it even a little bit unreasonable to expect that the legislators at least read the laws they are voting on, and perhaps even discuss the impact of the policy decisions those laws represent with the experts among their constituency.