Here’s my response from my Senator Sherrod Brown, after I asked for his support of a bill allowing reasonable time for Senators to read a bill before the vote. Note, I did not indicate support for any act requiring the bills be read aloud. That’s his own take. I just asked for adequate time- a few days to a week.
“Thank you for expressing your support for the “Read the Bills Act,” an initiative of the group Downsize DC.
The sentiment behind this proposal – that elected representatives should understand what they are voting on – is a commendable one. The dangers of rushed debate have been amply illustrated in the past.
Unfortunately, this proposal would result in practically blocking any action by Congress at all. It requires that every bill, every amendment to every bill, and every law amended by every bill, be read aloud on the floor, before either chamber of Congress may vote. It also requires that, before voting, Members of Congress swear under penalty of perjury that they have sat through the entire recitation or previously completed the required reading. And it gives anyone the right to seek injunctive relief to prevent implementation of the resulting law, based on a claim that a single representative took a bathroom break during the marathon reading of an underlying provision of law.
I believe in developing legislation that would meaningfully and practically reform the House rules to give every representative an opportunity to look over pending legislation before casting a vote. I also believe that votes on major legislation should not be taken in the middle of the night, allowing the American people a practical opportunity to monitor the business being done in their name.
Thank you for sharing your views on congressional accountability.
Sincerely,
Sherrod Brown
United States Senator”
Sherrod, Sherrod, I don't see how such an outcome could be called "unfortunate"! ;-)
So...the bills are too massive for the congress critters to read before voting? Well........how about they pass simple bills that only take one page to explain? I guess that would be too easy, or else make it too hard for them to hide their duplicity.
Congress just keeps creating a job for itself. They have to justify their salaries somehow. Does it occur to anyone that if there weren’t so many useless and crazy bills they would have time to read the ones of merit? 200+ years of being a country and we don’t yet have all the laws we need? Get in there, get us a budget that won’t sink our country and then leave us the hell alone.