[A]n odd editorial in today's Washington Post, takes to task "a group of well-meaning professional activists — and, so far, over nearly 60,000 online petitioners" who have demanded that members of Congress sign a pledge "never to vote on any bill unless they have read every word of it." While the activists "have a point," the Post concedes, their "proposal would bring government to a standstill." No reasonable functioning human being, the Post (correctly) points out, could possibly read every word of every bill that comes out of Congress, and legislators need time to do other things — to "hammer out legislation, draft amendments, interact with constituents, lead hearings . . . At some point, it's fine for members of Congress to rely on expert staff members."Part of the point of government is gridlock. Changing things too fast or too drastically is almost always a bad idea. Gridlock is a feature, not a bug.
I suspect that there's a fairly clear divide among people on this question. Some, like me, think it's pretty obvious: you can't know what a law means unless you've read its language, and you shouldn't be voting on a law if you don't know what it means. Seems pretty basic, actually. It's a task that, I would think, is primary — drafting amendments, and interacting with constituents, and the many other things members of Congress do, are secondary; Law-Making is what they are in Washington (or, for that matter, in Albany, or Harrisburg, or Springfield) to do, and the idea that they should "rely on experts" to do their job is pretty spectacularly wrong.
Some things I would like to see, but am pretty sure will not happen.
- Adding sunset clauses to most laws
- Limiting content of bills to the same topic, (no farm subsidies in a crime bill)
- Term limits limiting consecutive terms for the House and Senate.
- Putting the legal code in source control and tracking changes to see who put changes in and what it would effect
- Reducing the number of Czars
- Repeal the 17th Amendment. The States lost their voice and have paid the price in unfunded mandates ever since.
- Fiscal responsibility. Just because we can borrow more money or print more doesn't mean we should
3 comments:
I heard today that John Kerry asked why they were bothering with this, because "nobody reads this stuff anyway." That clown coulda been president. I continue to shake my head.
But remember, Kerry was full of nuance and far, far smarter than Bush.
Ah, that explains it.
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