Posted on 02/02/2024 2:13:42 PM PST by RandFan
Under no circumstances should this bill — which would make massive, permanent changes to immigration law — be passed next week.
Yesterday, a reporter standing outside the Senate chamber told me that, after four months of secrecy, The Firm™️ plans to release the text of the $106 billion supplemental aid / border-security package—possibly as soon as tomorrow.
Wasting no time, she then asked, “if you get the bill by tomorrow, will you be ready to vote on it by Tuesday?”
The words “hell no” escaped my mouth before I could stop them. Those are strong words where I come from. (Sorry, Mom).
The reporter immediately understood that my frustration was not directed at her.
Rather, it was directed at the Law Firm of Schumer & McConnell (“The Firm™️”), which is perpetually trying to normalize a corrupt approach to legislating—in which The Firm™️
(1) spends months drafting legislation in complete secrecy,
(2) aggressively markets that legislation based not on its details and practical implications (good and bad), but only on its broadest, least-controversial objectives,
(3) lets members see bill text for the first time only a few days (sometimes a few hours) before an arbitrary deadline imposed by The Firm™️ itself, always with a contrived sense of urgency, and then
(4) forces a vote on the legislation on or before that deadline, denying senators any real opportunity to read, digest, and debate the measure on its merits, much less introduce, consider, and vote on amendments to fix any perceived problems with the bill or otherwise improve it.
Whenever The Firm™️ engages in this practice, it largely excludes nearly every senator from the constitutionally prescribed process in which all senators are supposed to participate.
By so doing, The Firm™️ effectively disenfranchises hundreds of millions of Americans—at least for purposes relevant to the legislation at hand—and that’s tragic.
It’s also unAmerican, uncivil, uncollegial, and really uncool.
So why does The Firm™️ do it?
Every time The Firm™️ utilizes this approach and the bill passes—and it nearly always does—The Firm™️ becomes more powerful.
The high success rate is largely attributable to the fact that The Firm™️ has become very adept at (a) enlisting the help of the (freakishly cooperative) news media, (b) exerting peer pressure in a way that makes what you experienced in middle school look mild by comparison, and (c) rewarding those who consistently vote with The Firm™️ with various privileges that The Firm™️ is uniquely capable of offering (committee assignments, help with campaign fundraising, and a whole host of other widely coveted things that The Firm™️ is free to distribute in any manner it pleases).
It’s through this process that The Firm™️ passes most major spending legislation.
It’s through this process that The Firm™️ likely intends to pass the still-secret, $106 billion supplemental aid / border-security package, which The Firm™️ has spent four months negotiating, with the luxury of obsessing over every sentence, word, period, and comma.
I still don’t know exactly what’s in this bill, although I have serious concerns with it based on the few details The Firm™️ has been willing to share.
But under no circumstances should this bill — which would fund military operations in three distant parts of the world and make massive, permanent changes to immigration law — be passed next week.
Nor should it be passed until we have had adequate time to read the bill, discuss it with constituents, debate it, offer amendments, and vote on those amendments.
There’s no universe in which those things will happen by next week.
Depending on how long it is and the complexity of its provisions, the minimum period of time we should devote to this bill after it’s released should be measured in weeks or months, not days or hours.
Mike Lee is a U.S. Senator from Utah and author of “Our Lost Constitution: The Willful Subversion of America's Founding Document.”
Can’t Mitch go be a Senator in China or somewhere? I absolutely hate this guy as much as I do any democrat, and that’s a massive amount.
How about you two &low me without looking....
The war is here.
Choose your side.
Yeah, sure.
We have to pass it to find out what’s inn it, right?
On the left is an illegal alien gesturing obscenely who
beat the crap out of an NYPD officer; released without bail.
On the right is a father of 11, convicted in federal court
of praying at an abortion mill facing 11 years in jail.
He probably already has dual citizenship-—via his wife.
Business as usual....
That’s how we got ObamaCare.
It’ll pass no problem, the House on the other hand is a toss up. Surrender Johnson will probably cave as usual.
Mitch is the most hated politician in the country so of course the Republican Senators made him Senate Minority leader and it wasn’t even close
Why didn’t they give Trump $5 billion to build the wall at the southern border?
They gave it to Pelosi for Ice Cream instead.
There is no Schumer and McConnell border bill that should ever be passed.
Who needs to read it to know that?
If Schumer And McConnell are involved it has to be very very BAD
Funding related bills are the purview of the House. Chuckie and the Turtle can cook it up, but the House has to ‘serve’ it.
NO! Vote it down in conference.
More crap the indolent serfs will just roll over and accept!
Gomer Cotton and Bubba Boozman will sign anything without reading it if McConnell tell them to.
TOTALLY AGREE, HELL NO.
VOTE DEMOCRATIC OUT.
Can’t any senator demand the bill be read allowed before being voted?
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