A modest proposal

[unixronin]

This idea came to me during the course of a recent comment thread, and I want to toss it out to a wider audience.  The subject of discussion was the malfeasance of Congress, including the practice of full floor votes on huge, multi-hundred-page bills only a few hours after they come out of cimmitte, before anyone can possibly have read them to know what they're voting on and know what lies buried in the small print and sub-paragraphs.

Suppose the rules and procedures for passing bills through Congress were modified by adding a provision such that whenever a bill is presented for a floor vote in the House or Seante, opponents of the bill have the option of challenging supporters of the bill to prove that they actually know what they're voting for.  They would do this by selecting a number of supporters (who may not be authors) of the bill to quiz on the content of the bill for a reasonable period -- say, not to exceed one hour.  If it becomes generally apparent during the course of this challenge that the bill's supporters are not actually familiar with its contents, then the bill must be remanded for further study by that house for a period of not less than (say) three days, during which the members of the body voting on the bill are expected to actually READ it.  This procedure may be repeated each time a bill is presented for a floor vote.

It should prevent the congresscritters being able to blindly pass a rubber-stamp vote on bills that they've merely glanced at the summary of, or have simply been told to support.  On the other hand, if they really have read the bill, and know what they're voting on, then it will not delay the bill by more than an hour.  It may also provide some slight discouragement to the nonsense of "This bill just failed in a floor vote, so we're going to vote on it again right now, and we'll keep on bringing it back and voting on it back-to-back until it passes."

Thoughts?  Flames?  Rotten fruit?

Comments

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

AIUI, there are so very many bills, which are so very verbose, that it may well be physically impossible to read them all out loud on the Senate floor.

As long as congresscritters have good, competent staffers who prepare good, competent summaries... I don't think we have to require each and every representative to read each and every bill in its entirety.

HOWEVER, perhaps we could require that every bill come complete with its own official summary, prepared by non-partisan staffers? This would be useful to the general public, as well.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Wait, why are you objecting to slowing down the rate at which Congress passes laws? Or, alternately, to forcing Congress to pass laws which are less obfuscated?

-Ogre

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

I think that's the best bit. forcing Congress to pass laws which are less obfuscated because that means everyone else can read it too and know exactly what their congresscritters are doing with the power the people elected to give them.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I'd like to see Congress required to comply with a rule that basically says if they can't write a bill in plain English such that the average person on the street can understand it, then they may not write it. Period.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Do you mean that laws should be written in the same clear language that the constitution is written in? But, how would the lawyers react to that? (horror!) I mean, if that were true, most people would not really need a lawyer for mundane things.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I don't have a major problem with that. :) I have little doubt it would reduce the caseload on the courts and unclog the court system.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

AIUI, there are so very many bills, which are so very verbose, that it may well be physically impossible to read them all out loud on the Senate floor.

Then Congress is passing too many bills. Period. It's that simple. If they're writing so much law that they don't have time to read what they've written before they vote on it, then they're writing too much law.

"That government is best which governs least." The reverse is also true.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Please be fair. There are 300 million people in this country. That generates a lot of issues that need to be taken care of. Congress already has far too many things that just happen, year after year, without their input. Forcing them to vote on renewing legislation is a good thing. Also, there is some bad stuff that needs cleaning and new stuff that needs seeing to. Society changes, people change, generations go by. The day to day stuff needs changing to accommodate those changes. There is a lot to do. (Just because we disagree on what needs to be changed does not mean that nothing should be changed.)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure, all of this is true. But they make far too much law that, when all the fluff is out of the way, only really has one true purpose: To make them look good on the evening news. "I, your representative, passed [this utterly worthless, feel-good, do-nothing pile of unenforceable paper] today!"