Never mind what your politics are, there is something very wrong with a democracy in which lawmakers routinely vote on huge bills they have not even read. In fact, congressional bills have become so large and complex — and the time between lawmakers receiving copies and voting on bills often so short — that it is literally impossible for them to read much of the legislation than affects our daily lives.
The economic stimulus bill passed earlier this year, for instance, was more than 1,000 pages, and members were given just a few hours to read it. None did.
And you would have had to be a speed reader and an expert in obscure legalese to get through the complex 960-page Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” energy bill as it whisked through a key committee recently in the fast lane. . . .
Congressional leaders do not impose impossible timetables to break efficiency records. Rather, the aim is to avoid letting members, or the public, learn too much about key provisions before votes are cast … in case they get cold feet.
When Republican congressional leaders pushed through the 2003 Medicare drug legislation, for instance, many GOP rank-and-filers had little real understanding that it would add trillions to the long-term deficit. Some who had not studied its provisions even thought it would somehow reduce health spending, and leaders were happy to let them believe it.
High-speed action on mammoth bills also allows members to bury special-interest or controversial provisions within the blizzard of fast-moving paper. For instance, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, inserted language into the stimulus bill, at the urging of the White House, to protect executive bonuses at bailed-out American International Group Inc.
Sometimes this breakneck pace leads to embarrassment as well as bad policy. The 1981 tax bill was so hastily produced that it incorporated margin notes with the phone number of a clerk’s girlfriend. And in 1988, a bill omitted important spending numbers that had not yet been provided to Congress and the reminder “call Rita for these numbers.” That note, along with Rita’s phone number, was enacted with the bill and became the law of the land.
The author cites a California effort to require state legislators to sign a sworn affidavit that they have read the bill before they can vote on it, but this is hardly a solution. Hardly anyone can read 1,000 pages of legalese, much less multiple such bills per day. How could this problem be solved?
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