Did you know that most bills passed by congress are never read by legislators? Congresspeople have an alarming tendency not to read legislation before they vote on it. This creates a number of problems, such as over-powerful PACs who are actually writing legislation and a voting public who are being disenfranchised by the very people they elected to ensure that they would enjoy a better future.
Think about it. The legislative bills that go before congress are enormous, sometimes reaching hundreds or thousands of pages in length. The bills may claim to contain mainly one thing...a highway bill, for example...but it may secretly contain many provisions that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic of the legislation. Oftentimes, bills are rushed through so quickly that printed copies aren't even available for our legislators to read. Sometimes, the bills are quite literally being written by activists and then passed by ignorant congresspeople.
Of course this affects the voter in a very negative way. A perfect example is the USAPATRIOT act, passed shortly after 9/11. USAPATRIOT is an enormous bill, hundreds and hundreds of pages long, that was pushed through congress merely days after the catastrophe of 9/11. Nobody read the bill, and yet only 2 of the 100 representatives in the Senate actually bothered to vote against the bill on the grounds that they didn't know what was in it. This sort of thing happens all the time.
The biggest problem with this is that we the people are not actually being represented. Our legislators are passing random bills with no idea what is actually in them. We are not being represented by our elected officials so much as ignored by them. What can we do about it? Activism is the answer! I am a proud member of the Downsize DC coalition, and as such I have lent my signature to the Read The Bills Act, or the RTBA. Go on over and sign the petition for the RTBA. You'll be glad you did when your congress begins to do their job instead of letting PACs do it for them.
Explanation of the RTBA, copied from the Downsize DC website:
We hold this truth to be self-evident, that those in
Congress who vote on legislation they have not read, have not
represented their constituents. They have misrepresented them.And since Congress has repeatedly committed “legislation
without representation,” strong measures to prohibit these
Congressional misrepresentations are both justified and required.To this end we have created the “Read the Bills Act (RTBA).” RTBA requires that . . .
- Each bill, and every amendment, must be read in its entirety before a quorum in both the House and Senate.
- Every member of the House and Senate must sign a sworn affidavit,
under penalty of perjury, that he or she has attentively either
personally read, or heard read, the complete bill to be voted on.- Every old law coming up for renewal under the sunset provisions
must also be read according to the same rules that apply to new bills.- Every bill to be voted on must be published on the Internet at
least 7 days before a vote, and Congress must give public notice of the
date when a vote will be held on that bill.- Passage of a bill that does not abide by these provisions will
render the measure null and void, and establish grounds for the law to
be challenged in court.- Congress cannot waive these requirements.
The effects of these provisions will be profound . . .
- Congress will have to slow down. This means the pace of government growth will also slow.
- Bills will shrink, be less complicated, and contain fewer subjects, so that Congress will be able to endure hearing them read.
- Fewer bad proposals will be passed due to “log-rolling.”
- No more secret clauses will be inserted into bills at the last moment.
- Government should shrink as old laws reach their sunset date, and
have to be read for the first time before they can be renewed.
What's really frightening is what they do spend money on, like Alaska's bridges to nowhere.
"What would I like to tell you? That I didn’t get what I looked for: to gather all of us naked on the earthly pastures under the endless light of suspended time without that form which confines me as it once confined you." =Milosz
That way our elected officials will not have to rely on raising money for campaigns. It will end that ability to influence.
Lobbyists however, were not a product of our officials not reading legislation. But they have helped create the problems by making it lucrative for members of congress to write and include amendments to burden and drag down real legislation.
The debate system needs to be taken back from the corporate controlled media. They should be controlled by the non partisan League of Women Voters as they were until the 1980s. They should be broadcast on PBS, ensuring that all citizens have the ability to watch them. At present most debates are only aired on cable tv networks, which disenfranchises those too poor to afford cable.
We need to demand legislation that denies elected officials the ability to be hired by or work for those who lobby. Some might say this is discriminatory, but no one forces anyone to run for elective office, and elective office is supposed to be public service. We then must demand laws that do not allow direct lobbying of individual politicians or appointees. Also, no appointee should have any connections to industry that they have the power to influence and profit. There should be no allowance of lobbyists to have a hand in writing legislation.
Believe it or not, we had a much better electoral process in the US prior to the Reagan administration in the 1980s. Also, the Fairness Doctrine was a good thing. A small handul of corporations should not control all the media in the country. Nor should foreign interests. Reagan gutted all these rules at the request of his friends who were corporate lobbyists.
Message sent, support shown.
Good blog - many people probably don't realize this is happening. I wasn't fully aware of it, for sure. I just thought that bills weren't thoroughly read - I didn't realize that it goes so far as some bills not even being read.
Peace
Tahni
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"Tell me - if no one ever hears what you say, then why don't you shout it?" -- Floater
I thought at least the committees and Congresspeople who sponsor bills read it...I did not even realize this sort of thing was going this far, and it is a terrible thing to have happening.
Although, this sort of thing was pointed out in the old movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but I guess times have not changed enough to correct this problem.
I was aware of this and I am so glad that someone agrees with me on this topic. Honestly, we have to elect more honest and hardworking politician but that in itself is a oxymoron.
Respectable and well-argued, but incomplete.
You are correct that the congressmen rarely read these bills. They don't because it is impossible to do so. However, that does not mean they do not know what is in them. Each Congressman has a trusted staff that reads these things and relays them to him in a usable, condensed form. He offsets this with information gleaned from the opposing sides, and from lobbyist mail. Between these three main sources, he gets a pretty good idea of complete content, including any trick clauses, etc.
Congress is already slow and inefficient. If you take the <2% of the submitted bills that even hit the list of "to discuss" (and of those only a fraction really do) and then slow it down even more, we handicap our legislative body to the point where they can accomplish almost nothing, and can never react to a national threat.
What this would really do is put a permanent filibuster on Congress. No one sane would be willing to sit through hours and hours of legal lingo just to vote on it. Trust me. I have a job reading legal content and I can't stand to do it more than a couple hours a week.
I would really like to know how many voters read the thousands of pages of legislature that goes through Congress every week... Actually, I would like to know when you last read an entire bill that was currently on the floor.
The fact is that everyone gets 99% of their information second hand or older. You got this from a lobbyist, who came up with it after hearing about it on the news, which was compiled by a journalist who interviewed the congressmen's office staff. This isn't bad--it is necessary in order to be well informed on a variety of issues, which is exactly what we are asking of our representatives.
I think this topic is really true and that many people or citizens of the USA are not relizing this at all. We need more honest people to serve our country.
Instead of printing the bills electronic files should be sent to every congress persons computer. Then they couldn't say they didn't have a copy. Also, what does a congress persons support staff do? Can they help read and summarize the bills to the congress person?
What you're saying reminds me of something that we discussed in my government class a week or two ago. You can read about it here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20070818/ai_n19473558
Great blog! :]