Granted, it was from Fox, but still...

[BrianFromWA]

While standing watch today, the news had a guy on that talked about how he contacted every member of Congress and asked them to pledge to read every bill they voted on, and to post the bill on the 'Net for 72 hours before voting so the public/bloggers/analysts could read and report on it. He said that he was giving everyone two weeks to get back from vacation and get settled, but he was hoping for a yea or nay from everyone.

Is this too much to ask of our representatives? That they actually read bills they vote for us on? or at least post it for us to read, so that we can call them or send emails saying that we want a particular vote?

FWIW, the news lady said she'd invite him back in a couple of weeks to divulge who said yes and no, and who ignored him.

EDIT: I didn't see it on Fox Business, but it was this guy Hanna from Let Freedom Ring.

 

[SodaPopinski]

or at least post it for us to read, so that we can call them or send emails saying that we want a particular vote?

You mean like they currently do and have done for years?

http://thomas.loc.gov/

http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/b_three_sections_with_teasers/active_leg_page.htm

 

[BrianFromWA]

I like that list. I was under the impression, for instance on the Stimulus Bill, that the vote was 36 hours after it was made public (or something like that). Was it up on this site for 72 hours?

 

[PapaG]

I like that list. I was under the impression, for instance on the Stimulus Bill, that the vote was 36 hours after it was made public (or something like that). Was it up on this site for 72 hours?

Reps didn't even get the final Stimulus Bill until the night before the vote. They had something like 13 hours to read it.

Lobbyists got it before most members of Congress.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

It's a legitimate concern. Obama is always pushing for Congress to rush and not consider what they are doing. As a result some very bad legislature has passed thru. I think we're going to start seeing a much more deliberate Congress.

 

[Minstrel]

Lobbyists got it before most members of Congress.

That's because lobbyists make the laws.

 

[Idog1976]

I know this is a worrying trend with Obama rushing bills through without representatives reading them. Thank god this didn't happen in say October of 2001 to pull an arbitrary date out of a hat. Look please for the love of god people don't be partisan! It's killing the country! No not Democrats, not Republicans PARTISANSHIP! There was a time in this country when Democrats respected Republicans and vice versa. Now the common citizenry constantly evokes words like traitor and dictator to describe the opposition. Meanwhile, the political class and their special interest groups (Financial and otherwise) pass their bills while people are arguing over silly civil issues.

The sudden care that Republicans have for due process, freedom of speech and the constitution is quite touching but rings pretty damn hollow after 8 years of constitution shredding Bush admin support. I'm more then willing to discuss Obama's flaws but please don't act like all of this reckless spending, invansion of privacy, squashing of dissent and rushing of bills through congress in an "emergency!" atmosphere is new to our country thanks to the Obama admin. That's just insulting!

P.S. I did NOT vote for Obama nor did I vote McCain. I voted independant cause I can't stand partisanship.

 

[BrianFromWA]

I'm not talking about partisanship. I'm talking about reading the bill you're voting on. Where did it talk about Democrats not reading or Republicans not reading? I brought up a clip of a guy who just wants Congressmen to pledge to not vote on a bill before they've read it, and to post it for 72 hours for the public to peruse. I thought the President had already said he'd enact something similar at the Oval Office level.

Do you think it's a good thing to make our representatives pledge not to vote until they've read a bill? I do. Would I like to know who say "no" to this guy/? Definitely

 

[Idog1976]

I absolutely agree with you. I guess I got a little pre-emptive because I know a wave of oh dear lord Obama is a trojan horse muslim type posts are coming. I can count on them in this forum. You are totally right and I sort of went off on a rant I was reading the nuclear reduction thread as well so I cross bred them in my mind. I totally think there should be reading/posting of bills in their entirety. This however, is not a new phenomena (sadly) and certainly not unique to this Admin.

 

[PapaG]

I'm not talking about partisanship. I'm talking about reading the bill you're voting on. Where did it talk about Democrats not reading or Republicans not reading? I brought up a clip of a guy who just wants Congressmen to pledge to not vote on a bill before they've read it, and to post it for 72 hours for the public to peruse. I thought the President had already said he'd enact something similar at the Oval Office level.

Do you think it's a good thing to make our representatives pledge not to vote until they've read a bill? I do. Would I like to know who say "no" to this guy/? Definitely

Steny Hoyer literally laughed at the idea of having reps read entire bills.

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=50677

Washington (CNSNews.com) - 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.

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

 

[MARIS61]

It's a legitimate concern. Obama is always pushing for Congress to rush and not consider what they are doing. As a result some very bad legislature has passed thru. I think we're going to start seeing a much more deliberate Congress.

Obama has NEVER pushed Congress to act without considering what they are doing.

He has simply urged them to work at a speed appropriate for the emergency they are responding to and not dawdle and drag it out for their own personal motives.

If you are an employer it is not too much to ask your employees to be quick and efficient as well as skilled and knowledgeable in their jobs. It is a pretty basic requirement.

Those who can't respond quickly should look for another line of work.

As for "bad" legislature, we've had 8 straight years of it and many of these same dawdling Congressmen were responsible for enacting it. That's why Obama has such an enormous challenge.

 

[BrianFromWA]

Steny Hoyer literally laughed at the idea of having reps read entire bills.

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=50677

I'm a little deficient in my civics knowledge...can the President line-item veto?

If so, great. If not, what's stopping someone from putting a sentence into a 2000-page document that says, for instance, that abortion is now illegal. Or that Social Security is now stricken from the budget. Or that we're not going to pay a dime for an Air Force this year.

Their job is to represent us. I didn't vote for some staffer to make my decisions for me.

 

[Minstrel]

I'm a little deficient in my civics knowledge...can the President line-item veto?

No.

If so, great. If not, what's stopping someone from putting a sentence into a 2000-page document that says, for instance, that abortion is now illegal. Or that Social Security is now stricken from the budget. Or that we're not going to pay a dime for an Air Force this year.

He'd veto the whole bill and point out why. If the Congress overrode the veto anyway, then that means the legislature wants to outlaw abortion or the Air Force. If not, they'll pass a new version of the bill without that line.

 

[barfo]

Their job is to represent us. I didn't vote for some staffer to make my decisions for me.

But surely as a military man you know that the 4-star general doesn't decide every detail. He knows the overall plan, but staffers closer to the action decide whether the whites of their eyes are actually visible, no?

Like it or not, congressfolk have staff and delegate to them, like any manager in any big organization.

barfo

 

[BrianFromWA]

Do you think that General Petraeus would get away with saying "Sorry Mr. President, I have no idea if we have people in Anbar province right now, b/c I haven't looked at the Ops Status report. I'm a busy and important man. But I just ordered whatever Colonel WhatHisName recommended to be implemented without looking at the plan, the Rules of Engagement, or our Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis. We're on it, sir."

 

[barfo]

Do you think that General Petraeus would get away with saying "Sorry Mr. President, I have no idea if we have people in Anbar province right now, b/c I haven't looked at the Ops Status report. I'm a busy and important man. But I just ordered whatever Colonel WhatHisName recommended to be implemented without looking at the plan, the Rules of Engagement, or our Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis. We're on it, sir."

Get away with it? No, nor would I expect him to try to get away with it. However, I would expect that something like that would be the truth. [The specifics here I'm not making any claim about, I don't know an Ops Status report from my grandmother, so if that is something that a person in his position would normally read, it isn't a good example of what I was talking about].

barfo

 

[BrianFromWA]

I guess what I'm saying is this--and I'm sorry that I have to use hypotheticals.

There is an operations plan for, say, attacking country x if they invade country y. (this is my analogy to a bill like the stimulus package or whatever). The 4-star in charge HAS TO have read and dictated what the "big-picture" plan is (for instance, 500B for "shovel-ready" projects or something). He's not worried about what radio channel Platoon A is using to talk to Platoon B, nor should he--that's for his low-level operations officers (staffers, in the analogy). But if someone had put in a line that said something like "use radio Frequency Z. Then set off a nuclear bomb. Or surrender to the enemy."...the general is negligent, will be fired, and the ops planner will go to jail. I saw a bit of a show Hannity did the other day about Stimulus and Omnibus waste. Someone decided it was a good idea to insert all of these "waste" or "pork" provisions into a bill that no one read, and it was de facto voted on by the staffers that say they stayed up all night reading this thing and recommending approval to their congressional bosses (though my cynical view thinks it was voted on by party leadership, but maybe I've seen too much "American President"). Yet there's no accountability for the bill once it's voted on, unlike the operations plan.

I hope I didn't just muddy the waters further.

 

[barfo]

I guess what I'm saying is this--and I'm sorry that I have to use hypotheticals.

There is an operations plan for, say, attacking country x if they invade country y. (this is my analogy to a bill like the stimulus package or whatever). The 4-star in charge HAS TO have read and dictated what the "big-picture" plan is (for instance, 500B for "shovel-ready" projects or something). He's not worried about what radio channel Platoon A is using to talk to Platoon B, nor should he--that's for his low-level operations officers (staffers, in the analogy). But if someone had put in a line that said something like "use radio Frequency Z. Then set off a nuclear bomb. Or surrender to the enemy."...the general is negligent, will be fired, and the ops planner will go to jail. I saw a bit of a show Hannity did the other day about Stimulus and Omnibus waste. Someone decided it was a good idea to insert all of these "waste" or "pork" provisions into a bill that no one read, and it was de facto voted on by the staffers that say they stayed up all night reading this thing and recommending approval to their congressional bosses (though my cynical view thinks it was voted on by party leadership, but maybe I've seen too much "American President"). Yet there's no accountability for the bill once it's voted on, unlike the operations plan.

I hope I didn't just muddy the waters further.

I think we mostly agree. The guy on top is responsible for what's in the plan/bill. To the extent that congresspeople are refusing to accept responsibility for a bill they voted for (I haven't heard that, but maybe it is true) then that's a bad thing. Not reading every word that their staffers produced, I don't think is necessarily a bad thing, although obviously in a perfect world where everyone had infinite time and patience and intellectual capacity, they would read and understand every word.

barfo

 

[BrianFromWA]

I'm with you, and I think another dynamic at play is that IF the general found that line in the plan to surrender to the enemy, he'd one-line it and start finding someone to fire. In my view of what is happening (which may be overly pessimistic), the check and balance of Congress is debilitated by the fact that our representatives are missing some pretty big gaffes, and getting away with it by saying "it's impossible to read the entire thing! Nothing would ever get voted on!" That, coupled with (as I'm informed) the president has to send the whole bill back if it doesn't meet his approval/expectation. So if Obama's big push was "health care bill", and he got a health care bill passed through congress up to him with some hidden pork/bad news for us, he has to spend a lot of political capital sending "his" bill back to Congress. Or, he could be expedient and sign it into law, thinking that it's better to have a decent bill with obvious flaws than to waste the capital fixing it. Again, I may have a jaded view of politicians (and this isn't Obama-specific, I'm sure GWB and the others have done the same), but the fact that it starts with our elected congressmen bothers me a lot. .

 

[barfo]

I'm with you, and I think another dynamic at play is that IF the general found that line in the plan to surrender to the enemy, he'd one-line it and start finding someone to fire. In my view of what is happening (which may be overly pessimistic), the check and balance of Congress is debilitated by the fact that our representatives are missing some pretty big gaffes, and getting away with it by saying "it's impossible to read the entire thing! Nothing would ever get voted on!" That, coupled with (as I'm informed) the president has to send the whole bill back if it doesn't meet his approval/expectation. So if Obama's big push was "health care bill", and he got a health care bill passed through congress up to him with some hidden pork/bad news for us, he has to spend a lot of political capital sending "his" bill back to Congress. Or, he could be expedient and sign it into law, thinking that it's better to have a decent bill with obvious flaws than to waste the capital fixing it. Again, I may have a jaded view of politicians (and this isn't Obama-specific, I'm sure GWB and the others have done the same), but the fact that it starts with our elected congressmen bothers me a lot. .

I don't disagree. The idea that you can stuff unrelated, or undesired, crap into a bill and get it passed because the (perceived) benefit of the overall bill outweighs the crap is a definite downside to our system of government.

barfo

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Obama has NEVER pushed Congress to act without considering what they are doing.

He has simply urged them to work at a speed appropriate for the emergency they are responding to and not dawdle and drag it out for their own personal motives.

If you are an employer it is not too much to ask your employees to be quick and efficient as well as skilled and knowledgeable in their jobs. It is a pretty basic requirement.

Those who can't respond quickly should look for another line of work.

As for "bad" legislature, we've had 8 straight years of it and many of these same dawdling Congressmen were responsible for enacting it. That's why Obama has such an enormous challenge.

I agree with you that past congresses have "dwadled" too much, but to me Obama is trying to ram rod his agenda thru and is being very (to his credit) transparent about it. There's a reason why ther president doesn't make and sign his own legislation- so the US Congress can review it, debate it, amend it and then send it to be signed. That takes a certain amount of time, but Obama is asking congress to skip their due diligence. It may not concern you, but it does me. And I can give you a 100% guarantee that if it were a conservative president doing what Obama is doing, you;d be screaming bloody murder from the roof top. Try climbing down from your liberal blind and remember that the US Congress has to act in the best interests of everyone- liberals, conservatives, moderates and even those who don't vote. It's their job to do so and I, for one, do not want to see that aspect pushed aside for any reason.

 

[maxiep]

I don't disagree. The idea that you can stuff unrelated, or undesired, crap into a bill and get it passed because the (perceived) benefit of the overall bill outweighs the crap is a definite downside to our system of government.

barfo

On this issue we completely agree. I'd love to see a law where only one discrete new law could be voted on at a time. If that make Congress work more slowly or work harder, well, 'dems the breaks.

To vote on a bill you haven't personally read or can't even discuss in knowledgable terms is a dereliction of duty IMO.

 

[maxiep]

I agree with you that past congresses have "dwadled" too much, but to me Obama is trying to ram rod his agenda thru and is being very (to his credit) transparent about it. There's a reason why ther president doesn't make and sign his own legislation- so the US Congress can review it, debate it, amend it and then send it to be signed. That takes a certain amount of time, but Obama is asking congress to skip their due diligence. It may not concern you, but it does me. And I can give you a 100% guarantee that if it were a conservative president doing what Obama is doing, you;d be screaming bloody murder from the roof top. Try climbing down from your liberal blind and remember that the US Congress has to act in the best interests of everyone- liberals, conservatives, moderates and even those who don't vote. It's their job to do so and I, for one, do not want to see that aspect pushed aside for any reason.

Repped.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

On this issue we completely agree. I'd love to see a law where only one discrete new law could be voted on at a time. If that make Congress work more slowly or work harder, well, 'dems the breaks.

To vote on a bill you haven't personally read or can't even discuss in knowledgable terms is a dereliction of duty IMO.

I don't think individual members of congress have the time or even to read every single page of every single bill. Supposedly, they have staffers who do this for them and then brief them. There are also hearings, debates... that bring out various particulars. It's enough for me they at least gain a fair understanding of the bill.

 

[maxiep]

I don't think individual members of congress have the time or even to read every single page of every single bill. Supposedly, they have staffers who do this for them and then brief them. There are also hearings, debates... that bring out various particulars. It's enough for me they at least gain a fair understanding of the bill.

Yeah, all that fundraising, working on re-election and preening for a higher office can really cut into your working hours.

In this case, the order came from up high to vote on it or your political career is over in the Democratic Party. Anyone who caves that easily doesn't deserve to be a US Congressman.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Yeah, all that fundraising, working on re-election and preening for a higher office can really cut into your working hours.

In this case, the order came from up high to vote on it or your political career is over in the Democratic Party. Anyone who caves that easily doesn't deserve to be a US Congressman.

I have a friend whose job used to be proof reading state bills before they went to the members. He and his staff proof read tens of thousands of papers each week. How would anyone expect a congress person to read and absorb that much when they do have other things to do- attend committee meetings (with necessary prep time), independent studies and other prep work for various bills & causes, deal with constiuents, speeches, luncheons & dinners with a host of clubs..., and even take the necessary time to raise money and campaign for re-election... they actually are pretty busy folks.

 

[maxiep]

I have a friend whose job used to be proof reading state bills before they went to the members. He and his staff proof read tens of thousands of papers each week. How would anyone expect a congress person to read and absorb that much when they do have other things to do- attend committee meetings (with necessary prep time), independent studies and other prep work for various bills & causes, deal with constiuents, speeches, luncheons & dinners with a host of clubs..., and even take the necessary time to raise money and campaign for re-election... they actually are pretty busy folks.

I have two solutions. First, work harder. I used to work 80-100 hours per week on stuff more detailed than reading and understanding bills. Eventually I got burned out and had to find something less intense to do. If they choose not to work so hard, they can find other work. There are plenty of other people who are willing to replace them. Relying on staffers who often have their own agendas is a cop out.

Second, pass fewer bills. I prefer fewer laws to more. If you constrict the amount of bills that can get passed, you ensure that only the best bills make it so far to be voted upon. The Senate was supposed to be the cooling dish for the oven that is the House. Yet, it seems the only place where global warming verifiably exists is in the Senate chamber.