What a Bunch Of Wimps
This AP article makes me sick. Erica Werner insists on telling us that reading bills is difficult. She even quotes legislators who verify that:
Well, have you ever tried reading a bill?
Take Medicaid. An average person might describe it as the federal-state health insurance program for the poor. But to the authors of the House Democrats’ health care bill, “The term ‘Medicaid’ means a State plan under title XIX of the Social Security Act (whether or not the plan is operating under a waiver under section 1115 of such Act).”
The bill goes on to say, “The terms ‘premium plan’ and ‘premium-plus plan’ have the meanings given such terms in section 203(c).”
Like those examples, the legislation is peppered with cross references to other laws or statutes that are never explained, defying understanding by anyone without a law degree or years of legislative experience. Most lawmakers have never read the bills; that’s what staff members are for.
“The minutiae of legal drafting is not necessarily related to understanding the concepts in the bill,” said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., who certainly has had his hand in writing laws in nearly 20 years in the House. “You could literally get lost in the forest for the trees” trying to read it, he said.
I’ll admit that it takes a fair amount of patience to read a bill but if you’re willing to make that sacrifice, it’s quite possible. I totally reject Werner’s statement that legislation defies “understanding by anyone without a law degree or years of legislative experience.” Besides, it misses the point.
The truth is that there are an army of lawyers and lobbyists out there who read frequently legislation. Frankly, it isn’t like every citizen has to read the entire bill. When H.R. 3200 was published online, King went through the entire bill. I’ll cede the fact that he’s read alot of legislation in his lifetime but anyone with a bit of intellect and a bunch of patience can read legislation.
The other thing about it being complicated tells me that the legislators purposely wrote it that way. A perfect case in point was the stimulus bill coming out of conference committee. They wrote that bill in such a way that you couldn’t find a single earmark in the bill. I thought that strange considering the specific earmarks included in the House stimulus bill.
That bill included money for a rail project between Disneyland and Vegas and $16.1 million for the harvest field mouse. When the conference committee report came out, those things had vanished into thin air. Before you think that they got eliminated, think again.
John Boehner wrote awhile back that the money had gotten appropriated for the harvest field mouse. I’m shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you.
Ms. Werner’s article is nothing more than a journalist giving politicians political cover. If you’re asking why that won’t work, it’s because people at townhall after townhall cited specific provisions in H.R. 3200 to the legislators. The citizens knew more about the legislation than the people who will vote on the legislation.
The impenetrability of legislative language is not in itself an argument against posting bills online and letting voters try to figure them out. That happened over the summer with the House’s 1,017-page health care bill, with mixed results. Some sections of the bill were taken out of context or misunderstood, often to feed critics’ political agendas. At the same time, there was a full airing of concerns that the legislation raised.
The legislation got a “full airing” because citizens refuted the talking points that Democratic legislators with specific provisions of H.R. 3200. Had these citizens not read the bill, they wouldn’t have been able to refute the talking points that Speaker Pelosi sent home with the legislators. (BTW, that’s why this article was written.)
Despite the hubbub, the House bill is not even close to the final product that Obama might ultimately sign into law. And that’s another part of the problem. Congress’ lawmaking process is such that legislation goes through numerous permutations before being massaged into a final bill that could become law. Along the way, particularly in the Senate, legislating happens on the fly, with bills evolving in real time during committee meetings. Even after debate begins in the Senate, changes are the norm.
It isn’t a problem. It’s an opportunity. Shouldn’t we want the people who will be affected by legislation reading the legislation, then giving their senators and representatives input on the provisions they like and dislike?
I know that’s a revolutionary concept to some of our legislators but it’s how things work best.
But transparency advocates see that argument as part of the problem. They point to instances in which controversial provisions were added quietly, at the 11th hour, unbeknownst to most. Consider this: A provision was tucked into this year’s economic stimulus bill in last-minute, closed-door talks that allowed insurance giant American International Group to pay huge executive bonuses.
If lawmakers had put the brakes on the process and exposed it to sunlight, that development and others like it might have been avoided, advocates argue.
“People became outraged when they discovered that the norm was for legislators to vote on legislation they hadn’t read,” said Colin Hanna, head of a group, Let Freedom Ring, that is asking lawmakers to pledge to read health overhaul legislation before voting.
Most importantly, these legislators work for us. If they want to ignore the will of the people, that’s their right. It’s also their tombstone. Legislators that tell us they’ll do things their way might find that their way will put them on a highway. PERMANENTLY!!!
In my speech to the 9/12 TEA Party, I said this:
NO MORE will We The People let you ignore us. NO MORE will We The People believe that all wisdom resides in tiny corridors of Washington, DC or St. Paul, MN. NO MORE will we treat the words from a career politician’s mouth like they were etched in stone on Mount Sinai. Instead, We The People will demand that our elected officials be servant leaders who enjoy hearing from us & who value our opinions.
NO MORE has become the rallying cry of We The People. The message is clear. It’s our way of telling politicians that there’s a paradigm shift happening, one that we expect compliance on. If the legislators who theoretically represent us won’t listen to our demands, we’ll replace them until we get people that pay attention to our demands.
See how simple that is? It’s so simple even a politician can figure it out.
Technorati Tags: Stimulus, AIG Bonuses, Read The Bill, Political Cover, Medicaid, Reform, Talking Points, Speaker Pelosi, Townhall Meetings, TEA Parties, NO MORE, Public Servants, Elections
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
October 12th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Saying crap like that, is their way of trying to scare us into some kind of stupified awe about Washington.
Well, guess what, when Congressmen wake up in the morning, they dont levitate into their pants, they actually put them on one leg at a time.
I am so sick and tired of the expected idol worship and groveling we seemed to be expected to do just because somebody ends up in Washington. Yes, it takes hard work, to be elected, it also takes hard work to run a business, keep a family solvent and do the goddamned IRS dance every year!
Tell your Congress”person” to get a life and read the f-ing bill! If we can do it, they can!
October 12th, 2009 at 8:25 am
I’ve got a life outside of politics, and that life takes time. If the politicians (who we hired to do a specific job) aren’t up to the task of doing the job they were hired for, they should voluntarily step aside immediately so someone who CAN do the job properly has the opportunity to show their mettle, and the resigned politician can have that much more time going about doing what was more important to them than legislating properly.
Simple concept. Stupid airheads that continue to vote them into office time after time after time…
October 13th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
It’s illegal to rob a 7-Eleven, where at most a few thousand dollars might be the issue.
It should be illegal to write a piece of legislation that (supposedly) intelligent congresspeople cannot read or comprehend, especially when hundreds of BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars are in jeopardy.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 am
What is the historical value of all this? ,