Posted on 07/13/2009 8:29:59 AM PDT by FromLori
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.
“Members clearly--and staff and review boards, they read them in their entirety. They go over it with members, and members read substantial portions of the bill themselves, but the issue is--I don’t know who signed this (pledge), but frankly the opposition has been very vociferous, not of the verbiage and bill, but on the concept that it incorporates,” Hoyer said.
Let Freedom Ring, a Delaware-based conservative organization, is circulating a pledge that asks members of Congress to promise to read the entirety of the final text of a health-care reform bill before they vote on it. They also are asking that the full bill be made available for review by the public for 72 hours before Congress votes on it.
Colin Hanna, president of Let Freedom Ring, said Hoyer’s comment is evidence that lawmakers in Congress are “off-track.”
“It tells the American people how off-track our legislative process has become,” Hanna said. “I think if the framers of our Constitution ever saw an entire legislative body vote on a 1,500-page bill that no one had read, they would shudder--if not go into fits of apoplexy.”
Hanna said the pledge to read the full health-care bill--and all future bills--is one way for lawmakers to show that they are not casual in their commitment to constituents.
“We think the American public expects their legislators to know what’s in a bill before they support it, and we’re urging legislators to sign a pledge to that effect,” Hanna told CNSNews.com.
By signing the “Responsible Health-care Reform Pledge,” lawmakers commit to reading the entire bill and making it available to the public for three days before they cast their votes.
The pledge says, “I, (Name inserted here), pledge to my constituents and to the American people that I will not vote to enact any health-care reform package that: 1) I have not read, personally, in its entirety; and, 2) Has not been available, in its entirety, to the American people on the Internet for at least 72 hours, so that they can read it too.”
Earlier CNSNews.com stories revealed that few – if any –congressmen read the 1,550-page American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 or the 1,071-page American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 before voting on the bills.
You mean you want them to actually do the job they were elected to do? Bwahahahahaa!!!
Carry on Hoyer boy...2010 won't get here soon enough.
Arrogant bastards.
If they vote for it without reading it, they are responsible for everything in it.
This arrogance reminds me of the House banking scandal a few years back. We deserve better than this from our elected leaders.
This clown’s cavalier attitude toward reading legislation summarizes and demonstrates the FACT that, instead of enjoying elected representation, we now endure a priviledged ruling class.
Someone shoud ask Steny boy if he thinks that would be a bad idea.
They get paid plenty, they get great benefits. Change that bill to read that the Congress goes on Social Security ,they have to get a pay raise by referendum , and their health benefits are the same as ours.
I bet they would read that one.
they went to DC to get rich and richer....the rest is show.
Wow, don’t you feel loved and cherished America? Our dear leaders are doing their best to screw us every chance they get. They don’t even know what the heack they are reading, and they sure don’t know really what they are doing. Lord help us all.
This NIMROD does not realize that he is paid to read them. He is elected to read these on behalf of his constituents so they don’t have to read them. We elect people in his position to read and respond on our behalf otherwise his job is moot.
I think we need a new law that prohibits any member of the House or Senate from voting on any legislation unless they have sat through a full reading of the legislation in question. These would be marathon sessions with periodic potty breaks, because even leaving for a couple of minutes to take a leak would disqualify one from voting. Imagine how much idiotic garbage would disappear from bills, and how many idiotic bills would disappear completely.
Could the refusal to read any bill before voting on it be construed as Treason??
And the refusal to read numerous bills in one’s career in congress be construed as High Treason?
Hoyer is a world class shifty eyed weasel. Beleive me, I have met him. Underwhelmed.
Your Fired!
Yep, and that ushered in the first Republican majority House in decades. Hope we get the same result in 2010.
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