Comments on: Accountability on both ends

By: monoblogue » Blog Archive » We’re gonna ask you again: read the bill!

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:06:00 +0000

[...] who apparently reads my website (thanks Nisha!) and noticed I talked about this before: You have posted about the idea that members of Congress should read the bill before they debate them. The Sunlight [...]

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:38:03 +0000

You’re welcome. Unfortunately there are those like John Conyers who can’t be bothered with details – after all, it’s only what the lobbyists wrote anyway.

I suspect he’s lost on anything over the length of a postcard and lets his aides whisper in his ear what they think is in the bill.

By: Nisha Thompson

Nisha Thompson — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:47:51 +0000

Thanks for supporting Read the Bill. I hope you also take a moment to call your member of Congress. Lawmakers and their staff need to be educated on why this measure is important to their constituents and essential for better lawmaking.

The more transparency available during the debate of legislation the less likely secret provisions and earmarks are put in at the last minute. Congress needs to be forced to do this not just with a new rule but also with constituents demanding they see bills that will affect their lives.

So thank you for writing about Read the bill and also voicing your opinion on what needs to change.

Nisha Thompson
Sunlight Foundation
Online Organizer
nthompson(at)sunlightfoundation(dot)com

By: Marc Scribner

Marc Scribner — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:11:03 +0000

Excellent points. At the bottom of the post, I mention readthebill.org. Also, there is a libertarian group called Downsize DC that has been pushing the same sort of thing for several years.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:25:54 +0000

Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing staff reductions for Congressmen. I think the main point of these groups though is to avoid situations where we get behemoth bills with hundreds of pages dumped into them at the last minute.

As for the comment regarding reauthorization, you are correct in a way. But there can be improvements on the federal level, including the elimination of baseline budgeting. When I wrote that I was thinking more about the state level and their never-ending creation of funds for this and that.

By: Marc

Marc — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:41:56 +0000

The whole “read the bill” thing isn’t really all that useful. Senators and Congressmen know what is in legislation. If they don’t, then they should fire their staff, whose whole purpose is to know this. My problem isn’t that our legislators don’t know what’s in the bills, it’s that they vote for legislation that steals our money and takes away our rights. It’s not like they do this accidentally.

We would probably benefit from a slower legislative process so the public can become better informed on legislation. But to think that somehow things would be better if Congressmen had time to literally read legislation (or the committee report for the legislation, which is far more useful) is pretty far-fetched.

Also, most federal programs are already mandated to go through a reauthorization process. And, in a sense, they are forced to be reauthorized every year when Congress passes appropriations legislation to fund them. Every program outside of entitlements must receive a new appropriations every fiscal year. Congress is already doing a yearly review of legislation that involves expenditures.