Posted on 09/30/2009 9:09:54 AM PDT by BAW
Eighty-three percent (83%) of U.S. voters say legislation should be posted online in final form and available for everyone to read before Congress votes on it. The only exception would be for extreme emergencies.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds only six percent (6%) of voters disagree with this approach while 10% are not sure.
Of those who favor posting congressional bills in their final form on the Internet, 64% say they should be available to the public two weeks or more before Congress votes and 29% favor posting bills one week before a vote. Just four percent (4%) think three days before a congressional vote is soon enough, while one percent (1%) say one day is enough.
Among voters, there is no partisan disagreement on the issue. Eighty-five percent (85%) of Republicans, 76% of Democrats and 92% of voters not affiliated with either party favor posting non-emergency bills online for the public to read before they are voted on by Congress.
Support for posting legislation online is high across all demographic groups.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.
Right now, Republicans in the House are trying to force a vote on a measure that would require that pending bills be posted online for three days before that chamber votes on them. A few Democrats have joined the effort, but, according to news reports, their party leaders are fighting the bill which they view as a GOP delaying tactic. There is certainly room for cynicism about the GOP’s allegiance to this particular reform at this time. Members of both parties often raise procedural issues when it works to their advantage and oppose them when it doesn’t. However, the poll question did not mention the health care legislation but applied to all legislation. The results suggest that an overwhelming majority of voters consider such procedures as little more than common sense.
A majority of all Republicans, Democrats, and unaffiliated voters all support posting the legislation in final form at least two weeks in advance of any vote.
Eighty-eight percent (88%) of voters say they are following news stories about the health care debate, with 59% following very closely. Only two percent (2%) say they are not following news about the debate at all.
Just 41% of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform plan, the lowest level of support yet measured. Fifty-six percent (56%) are opposed to the plan.
Republicans have been complaining all year that the Democratic majority leadership are rushing lengthy, complicated legislation like the $787-billion economic stimulus bill through the House and Senate without giving legislators adequate time to even read them.
Before the stimulus vote, 58% said most members of Congress would not understand what is in the plan before they voted on it. And even a prominent Democratic senator complained that that would happen, given the way their party leadership rushed the plan through Congress.
“Increasing transparency was also one of President Obama’s major goals,” the New York Times reports. “When he took office he pledged to make bills passed by Congress publicly available for at least five days before signing them, though that has rarely happened in his eight-month tenure.”
Only 16% of voters now give Congress good or excellent ratings for its performance, while 53% say it’s doing a poor job.
Being a member of Congress is now viewed as the least respected job one can hold in America out of a list of nine professions.
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Who would pay for it? That would be a huge undertaking because you can’t just throw the word perfect copy on the web...it would have to PDF at least. Sometimes people are just not reasonable or have any realistic understanding of life in the real world.
The other 17% are the unions, Congress, Senate and the administration...
Someday, Americans are going to take their government back. I think that process has already begun. That’s a good thing.
How awful!
Can you imagine the ignorant, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing hoi-poloi actually looking over the shoulders of their SERVANTS, the Congress, as the Congress considers new ways to “harass the people and eat out their substance” and constrain their liberties?
How presumptious of those ignorant peasants!
By the way, we should INSIST that these bills be written in PLAIN LANGUAGE that is easily understood.
Like our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution!
Sounds to me as if it could be a part on a new “Contract For America.”
Any member of Congress that claims not read or understand a bill before voting on it doesn’t deserve the office. Making the bill public will give the people added power to hold their members of Congress accountable.
All the material is posted already, in other words, we are already paying for it. It comes in plaintext, for the most pat, but also pdf (See Congressional record - all bills are published).
The only difference under discussion here is timing. Should the text be available to the public before the body votes on the language? It is typical for "hot" topics, to have the text available to the public, the day AFTER the vote is taken.
If it would impede their ability to push through bad legislation, I’m all for it. If they can’t figure out how to convert to pdf, too bad.
Let's say it cost a million dollars to publish it on the web.
Let's say the proposal is for $1.3 TRILLION.
I'll put up a buck, and I'l give 10:1 odds I can get a million more by Monday!
I love the Democratic excuses: y’all wouldn’t understand the bills
even if you read them.
HOW THE H-LL would the Senators/Reps. know?
They don’t read the bills themselves!!!!!
I’d be happy with a “10 Minutes per Page” standard.
Listening to limbaugh, we are screwed. There is nothing we can do. They are going to pass this healthcare stuff through an amendment and the public won’t even know about it
Bills are all ready available on http://thomas.loc.gov/
Congress just needs to put them up in time.
“Who would pay for it? That would be a huge undertaking because you can’t just throw the word perfect copy on the web...it would have to PDF at least.”
This is not a problem.
re: By the way, we should INSIST that these bills be written in PLAIN LANGUAGE that is easily understood.
Amen! In addition to the actual language of the bill there should be a simple explanation of the intention of bill.
And then I come to my senses and I hear a far away voice saying, “Dream on!”
If they want exceptions for emergencies, the emergency bill should expire in 5 days while they pass the non-emergency version.
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