Ironic or Two-faced

Congressman Baird was so outraged at the quick passing of the appropriations bill without it being read that he sponsored House Resolution 544. Bills are available on line for 72 hours before being voted. Congressman Baird had no problem Friday voting on something he didn’t have time to read as long as he got his cut of the deal.

nateriver did not figure out that this article did not need to be excerpted, so I present it here in its entirety for your convenience:

Oh, the Irony ... Congressman Baird Champions Waiting Period, But Votes for Rushed Cap-and-Trade
Monday, June 29, 2009 12:56 PM

We're supportive of Congressman Brian Baird's effort to require that all bills and conference reports would be available on the Internet for 72 hours prior to a floor vote. He has sponsored House Resolution 554 to this effect, and that's great. In fact, we think that period of a bill being posted online should be even longer.
Especially in light of Baird's push for greater accountability, it struck us as ironic to see Baird's name on the list of "yes" votes on cap-and-trade. If you followed the debate on Friday, the day of passage, it was abundantly clear that members of the House of Representatives did not have an opportunity to read the bill in its entirety. After all, an amendment was dropped in the middle of the night before, and only an hour before the vote, the Acting Speaker admitted that the clerk was still cobbling together a physical copy of the final version.
Still, Baird cast his vote in favor of this bill, after winning concessions on a particular provision.
What do you think - should the champion of accountability legislation not have voted against the bill based on the fact that there was no time to read the final version?
If you want to contact Congressman Baird, click here.

I’m glad Representative Brian Baird has been pushing for more time to properly review bills in congress before he votes in lockstep with Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership. Would it make any difference at all in his vote if he had more time to ponder the contents of what he is voting on? I don’t see any evidence of that. On the recent monster pork-laden bills including last week’s cap & trade bill with a last minute 300 page amendment that no one had a chance to read—why doesn’t he just vote no, on the principle that he can’t vote yes until he has reviewed the contents? If enough of his fellows followed that reasoning, maybe he could bring about the change he supposedly wants. It would be more effective than grandstanding with his no-hope HR 554.

(My letter to The Olympian newspaper)

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