The perils of legislating in the dark Townhall
Jacob Sullum
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1068315/posts Anyway, 60 senators and 240 representatives voted for McCain-Feingold, a.k.a. Shays-Meehan, a.k.a. the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Surely at least some of them knew what all was in it.
Maybe not. In a story that is simultaneously hilarious and appalling, the Times describes how members of Congress are only now discovering, to their dismay, the requirements of the campaign finance restrictions they enacted almost a year ago.
"We sometimes leave our audiences in a state of complete shock," says a lawyer who teaches the intricacies of McCain-Feingold to Democratic legislators. His seminars elicit "a sort of slack-jawed amazement at how far this thing reached."
A lawyer who runs similar sessions for Republicans says, "There's an initial stage where the reaction is, 'This can't be true.' And then there's the actual anger stage."
"But then, Kucinich didn't know what was in his 'ban exotic space weapons' bill either."
There's so much he doesn't know one really doesn't where to begin.