Another broken promise

The end of "sunlight before signing". [Link]

Earlier this week, the White House officially abandoned President Obama's "Sunlight before Signing" pledge (which I discussed here and here). As the NYT reported:

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised that once a bill was passed by Congress, the White House would post it online for five days before he signed it.

“When there’s a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what’s in it before I sign it, so that you know what your government’s doing,” Mr. Obama said as a candidate, telling voters he would make government more transparent and accountable.

When he took office in January, his team added that in posting nonemergency bills, it would “allow the public to review and comment” before Mr. Obama signed them.

Five months into his administration, Mr. Obama has signed two dozen bills, but he has almost never waited five days. On the recent credit card legislation, which included a controversial measure to allow guns in national parks, he waited just two. . . .

At least, if we're not seeing it, legislators get to read and understand the bills they pass, right? Wrong.

UPDATE: FWIW, the Waxman-Markey climate bill passed 219-212. Any guess how many of those 219 (or, for that matter, the 212) really know everything that is in the bill?

SECOND UPDATE: As it turns out, there was not even a copy of the final bill language available in any form when the bill passed. Rather, as David Freddoso reports, the House Clerk had a copy of the 1090-page bill that emerged by committee and a copy of the 300-page set of amendments agreed upon at 3am Friday morning, and many provisions in the latter consist of the likes of "Page 15, beginning line 8, strike paragraph (11) . . ." In other words, it is highly doubtful that more than a handful of member of Congress knew the contents of the legislation they voted on. (LvPL)