by Matt Barr

Who has time to read these days?

Matthew Yglesias posts about the drastically short time intervals between when bills come out of conference committee and their passage on the House floor.

Under the circumstances, minimal concern for democracy and good government would suggest that members should be given a sufficient amount of time for the reports to be analyzed by staff and outside groups before they need to cast a vote. Ideally, one would allow the contents of a bill to be digested by those with the requisite expertise in policy and legislative language, and then with that done allow members of the public and interested parties to debate the merits of the legislation. Members, too, would debate the legislation as more information becomes known. Then a vote would be held under circumstances such that members of congress and their constituents can know what's being voted on.

Beyond that the above passage is about twice as long as it needs to be to make its point, irony probably unintended, and beyond that, probably unavoidably, the post (inspired by a -- heh heh -- 147-page report by Rep. Louise Slaughter you can view in PDF form here) snipes at Republicans more than is probably warranted, there being that I can tell no discernable difference in openness, honesty and integrity between Republican and Democratic Congresspersons, it's an important, thought provoking point. If the people voting on the laws aren't so much as reading them, doesn't that open the door for even more mischief than we expect from a fully deliberative bunch of busybodies? And maybe more urgently, are we giving our representatives a chance to get off the hook for bad laws come re-election time? "I voted for it, but I never actually read it"?

There are a lot of problems with Congress, but at the very least they should have to have each bill as proposed burned onto their retinas before they vote, so we can be as confident as possible in our desire to string them up.

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