Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Jonathan Adler writes about yet another betrayed promise of transparency from the Obama administration:
A few weeks ago, the Obama Administration officially abandoned the President's "Sunlight before Signing" campaign pledge that the White House would post all legislation passed by Congress for at least five days before the President would sign it. In making this announcement, the Administration maintained that it would comply with the spirit, if not the letter, of the original commitment by posting legislation on the White House site once it became clear legislation would eventually pass and make it to the President's desk. This new commitment, they suggested, would actually provide even greater sunlight, as some bills would be available for review earlier and for a longer time. Well, this promise is no longer operative either, as the Cato Institute's Jim Harper details. Since the White House announced its new sunlight policy, nine additional pieces of legislation have been signed into law by the President and yet, as of yesterday, not one had been posted on the White House web site.
Another good reason to support the Read the Bills Act and make sure that the public and watchdog groups have full access to every detail of legislation before it is voted on. It is absurd and dangerous that Congress continually passes legislation running into the thousands of pages without anyone knowing what is in the bill.
Much of that legislation is written by lobbyists and inserted by those they pay off. The public absolutely has a right to know what is in those bills before they pass so they can pressure their representatives over provisions that will cause more harm than good, or that are philosophically a bad idea.
And we should all stop falling for any rhetoric from the government that we have to pass this bill right now, immediately, without any time for consideration, or the sky is going to fall. I don't care which party is in power, when you hear that claim you should be absolutely certain that we are being taken for a ride.
Politics
Comments
This most appalling part of this particular broken promise is that it is such an easy one to meet and they lose so little by keeping it.
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | July 14, 2009 10:55 AM
Blech. So much for "change", huh?
Posted by: Adrienne | July 14, 2009 11:23 AM
While I support the spirit of the "Read the Bills" act, I'm not so sure about the act itself. According to the link Ed provided, RTBA requires that:
"Every member of the House and Senate must sign a sworn affidavit, under penalty of perjury, that he or she has attentively either personally read, or heard read, the complete bill to be voted on."
and
"Passage of a bill that does not abide by these provisions will render the measure null and void, and establish grounds for the law to be challenged in court."
Isn't this tantamount to giving every member of Congress veto power over any piece of legislation? Is so, I don't support it.
Posted by: Taz | July 14, 2009 11:44 AM
Having looked at the proposal and at the groups that have signed on to support the proposal, I can't agree with this one.
Taz has a valid point, at least from the version of it I was able to see, it appears to give every single member of congress the ability to veto or invalidate legislation by simply stating that they haven't read it, or doing so after the fact. All it takes is one person willing to take whatever penalty is established for the false affidavit and you have any piece of controversial legislation going down in flames. Look at some of the wack-a-loons we have in congress, Bachman for example, she'd be willing to take the hit to increase her position amongst the looneysphere fringe.
RBTA would also have the effect of always slowing congress down. Though there are definitely times we want this, there are also times we don't, establishing a situation where congress always takes a minimum of weeks or even months to accomplish anything isn't the answer we need. Also, all it would take is for one lobbying group opposed to the legislation to slow it down enough so that the session ends, at that point they'd have to start all over again.
We'd be recreating the congress under the Articles of Confederation.
Sorry, but this has the loony "smaller government is always better" aspect of libertarianism. That's just about as successful as communism.
Posted by: dogmeatIB | July 14, 2009 12:05 PM
Not that it would ever happen, but this just makes me want to push my idea for a new government. Introduce a 'fourth house'...the people. Instead of the executive branch signing bills into laws, they go to a popular vote once a quarter or so. (Hell, with modern technology, we could do it all online securely.)
One could even make it somewhat complicated and have the laws pass on a county or state level only.... =)
One can dream.
Posted by: FastLane | July 14, 2009 12:33 PM
> Hell, with modern technology, we could do it all online securely
Oh, how we laughed...
Posted by: David Durant | July 14, 2009 12:50 PM
I strongly reject the "Read the Bill Act" for three primary reasons and some minor reasons as well:
1) Bills should be fleshed out enough by the lawyers in their capacity as legislative aides in the direct employment of Congressmen in order to execute the principles being legislated. I also do not have a problem if these aides out-source some of the work to lawyers not in the direct employment of the Congressmen when expertise is not available amongst Committee members' legal staffs. When cases come to trial, judges should have a clarity and comprehensiveness that requires detail. I too reject lobbyists' drafts being copied and pasted into legislation but do not perceive the relationship between that and mandating Congress read all bills in their entirety.
2) It would be physically impossible for an elected legislator to read bills that are adequately written to achieve all the objectives Congress faces. I too see this as a sophomoric libertarian attempt to limit government. It's like asking CEOs to read every product specification their company produces. [I am in favor of CEOs now being required to sign off on their financial statements, which can be digested in a reasonable period of time.]
In fact, I think it's naive to believe even relevant Committee members managing the legislation should read all bills in their entirety. It's a waste of Congress's precious time - these people are executives, not auditors or legal aides. That doesn't mean we shouldn't work to increase accountability for what congress-people support that's passed, but delegation of authority and the specialization of tasks are not negative work standards, but instead primary factors that's led to economic growth and more robust policies.
3) I think such a bill would favor more lawyers being legislators. While I agree they probably should be the best represented group like they are now, diversity of experiences within Congress is a good thing. We need more economists, scientists, academics, business executives, and military officers - among others. Having to read impossibly large amounts of legalese much of which will not be understood by the non-lawyers, nor would there be time for a tutorial, is not a productive use of time - in fact I think the task impossible for anyone. There are valid reasons we are not each entrepreneurs of one, but most often a part of a team each with specific duties.
I do believe Committees responsible for the generation of bills that are passed have more of an obligation to both develop bills in a more transparent manner and monitor the success of passed bills in a more transparent manner - that would require added staff at the elected member and/or committee level which I support.
Read the Bill's Act to me takes from where we are now with all our attendant weaknesses and puts us back to some far more primitive time. While I understand this was the very sort of argument made to justify passing the Patriot Act, I would still lobby for my Congressmen to vote against the Patriot Act given we knew there were unacceptable powers included that were both unconstitutional and bad policy without having to read the bill it entirety - especially given the fact the Patriot Act didn't spend adequate time in the relevant Congressional Committees where bills are appropriately scrutinized to summate the issues and flesh out the words to support those issues.
If you want fix something, put more onus on laws that require the Committees to provide better executive summaries to the entire House and/or Senate prior to presenting to the Floor and better reporting of how a passed bill is faring relative to this stated objectives. That would achieve the marketed claim far more than what appears now to be a pathetically disingenuous claim to cripple the Congress.
Posted by: Michael Heath | July 14, 2009 12:51 PM
it'd be a veto any one congressmember who was willing to face a felony conviction could use to overturn a bill. perjury comes with up to five years in jail, plus the felony record. considering the number of bills passed each year, and that a felony conviction in office is a career-ending offense for a congresscritter, there could not be any high fraction of bills vetoed this way before we ran out of legislators.
...which is not to say that would necessarily be such a bad thing, mind, but...
Posted by: Nomen Nescio | July 14, 2009 1:04 PM
I agree with making the bills available for public scrutiny. I don't agree with trying to micromanage how congressmen do their jobs.
Posted by: Taz | July 14, 2009 1:24 PM
Michael,
An effective and well thought out fleshing out of most of my concerns with the legislation.
----------------
Nomen,
Look at the issues that Michael and I have pointed out with the proposal. The act would likely reduce congressional action to a veritable crawl, there wouldn't be that much legislation passing congress. Then add in the right combination of events, heck take a DeLay, an Ensign, someone else who either isn't going to be reelected or is facing ethics investigation. Nothing there to stop them from throwing themselves under the bus for any number of reasons. Add in the chance of an under the table agreement, and it would be easy to do with a lot of upside for the individual "sacrificing" themselves.
Would anyone pay very close attention to the congress-critter after the fact? Probably not.
Posted by: dogmeatIB | July 14, 2009 1:44 PM
IANAL, but from what I've read of the bill I think the concern about any congressman having an effective veto power is misplaced. The Enforcement Clause states that a bill cannot become law "without Congress having complied fully with the printing, reading, entry, publishing, recording, and affidavit requirements" where the affidavit requirement is that voting members "shall have filed with the clerk of the Senate or House, respectively, a signed and sworn written affidavit."
Obviously, the affidavits are made under penalty of perjury, but it is the filing of them that should be relevant here anyway.
In any case, I'm all for slowing Congress down to the slowest crawl possible.
Posted by: nicole | July 14, 2009 2:08 PM
You know, I have a different view of these things now after having watched The Wire.
I can certainly understand how politicians may end up in impossible situations. I'm not saying that's the case here, but you never know what goes on behind the scenes. There may be cases where these guys are between a rock and a hard place, and end up having no choice but to compromise.
Just a thought.
Posted by: Martin | July 14, 2009 2:10 PM
@Adrienne
In all fairness, he did say it was change we could "believe" in, you know, like God or Santa Claus. If he were to provide any actual evidence for change then it would destroy belief and the hope belief precipitates. Obama is inspiring America to keep on hoping.
[/@Adrienne]
I'm going to have to give more thought to this Read the Bills Act. I agree that as written it's at best problematic and Michael makes some good points. But at the same time more transparency and accountability is certainly called for and the act unquestionably does that. I like the idea of creating a systematic incentive for Congressmen to want smaller, more focused legislation. I wonder of there are some elements or principles that could be teased out and turned into a workable proposal.
Posted by: Abby Normal | July 14, 2009 2:36 PM
Abby Normal stated:
Hear, hear, though I'd suggest just "more focused". A health care reform bill should not include selling a parcel of federal land to a developer in a Congressperson's district that was the indirect price for their vote. On the other hand, I don't neccessarily think "smaller" is better given I'd prefer reform that's more systemic-oriented than task oriented which would normally be a broader approach and therefore heftier in volume.
Posted by: Michael Heath | July 14, 2009 3:54 PM
I don't know how many laws get passed in a sessios of congress, I'm guessing it's more than a couple of hundred. To even read that much text, never mind understand it, is a daunting task. Like lots of folks I've signed all sorts of
"contracts"--with various internet providers, software developers and other corporate of government entities--without reading the entire text of many of them, never mind being able to peel the onion of legalese to see what they really mean.
The system in current use is teh suck, but I'm not at all confident that the RTBA will solve the problem.
Posted by: democommie | July 14, 2009 4:12 PM
The "pocket veto" potential isn't all that hard -- just change the terms to only apply to those voting for the Act.
It's all the other reasons why it's bogus that really matter.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | July 14, 2009 4:38 PM
That's it! No more legalese. All bills should be in LOLSpeak, preferably accompanied by adorable pictures of kitties. I don't know if it would initially improve the quality of legislation. But it would at least get the public to take an interest. It's much harder to sneak in an unrelated, self-serving amendment when the people are paying attention.
@ Michael
I could live with simply more focused. Any ideas? I've seen a few "one purpose per bill" proposals, but nothing I'd call good. And as you can see from my reply to democommie, my brain has taken the day off.
Posted by: Abby Normal | July 14, 2009 4:41 PM
As for the "more focused" requirement for bills, I've been a fan of my home state having a requirement that bill's could only deal with a single subject. Of course there's plenty of absurd arguments for what relevance some weird addition has to the rest of the bill. Still it seems to cut down some of the random inclusions.
As for the original subject, in some ways Obama failing to live up to this promise is one of the bigger disappoitments I've seen. Not because it was actually a big deal, but like Joshua Zelinsky said, this would have been such an easy thing to follow through on.
Posted by: mcmillan | July 14, 2009 5:04 PM
Posted by: James Hanley | July 14, 2009 5:50 PM
How about FULL disclosure as to who wrote the bills? Every time someone, whether staffer or congressperson or outsourced tech writer, makes a change to the file that represents the bill, their name, time, and change is recorded. It needs to be done automatically by the computers they're using, so there's no (or minimal) reporting burden. Also, there needs to be NO expectation of any privacy while conducting government business. Every phone call, every conversation, every burp and fart gets recorded for examination later. Let laws that aren't too controversial go through as they do now, but anything that's questionable is going to have someone's name on it. We can deal with any problems after the fact. If nothing else, the media can have "who last fucked up legislation" specials to get viewership.
Posted by: Shawn Smith | July 14, 2009 6:26 PM
I agree with Shawn Smith completely, and the technology is already available, it'd merely need to be tweaked.
I just heard that the Dems will be adding the Hate Crimes Bill to the annual defense bill. That's exactly what some of us were discussing when it comes to Congress not focusing. The Hate Crimes Bill should pass solely on its own merits. While the Hate Crimes Amendment will be voted for on its merits in the Senate, it's not clear how this will get addressed in the House.
Posted by: Michael Heath | July 14, 2009 6:40 PM
Abby Normal, Michael Heath:
To give you an international perspective, in New Zealand all Bills are read out in parliament before they are voted on. There are three separate votes on each Bill so there are three separate readings: once when it it introduced, once after it gets back from Select Committee (which is where the public comments on it) and once after all amendments have been considered and voted on. Somehow we manage to carry on just fine.
Posted by: James K | July 15, 2009 1:37 AM
James K:
That sounds like a good idea but, considering the sheer bulk of the bills, I think it would be a 24/7 sort of exercise. Providing a synopsis of the bill in question, something like:
A.) This is what was proposed originally.
B.) This is all of the add on bullshit, with the names of the bullshitters.
C.) This is what we've got now.
might work. Of course I don't see anything remotely like that happening.
Posted by: democommie | July 15, 2009 7:18 AM
RE: Taz, dogmeatIB, et al... Taz made an important catch. He's wrong about what the bill actually does, but the fault lies with us, at DownsizeDC.org, because he was accurately quoting our intro text.
Further, Taz was right to oppose the idea as he understood it because the effect would be exactly what dogmeatIB suggested it would be -- a pocket veto for every member of the House and Senate.
We will fix the intro text to make the following more clear...
Actually, the bill requires that every member who wants to vote in the affirmative -- to cast a Yes vote in favor of more spending, keeping or creating a new program, or passing a law, must first, sign an affidavit, swearing that they have either read the bill themselves or had it read to them.
Posted by: Jim Babka | July 15, 2009 11:11 AM
Mr. Babka - do you have a webpage link that makes an effective argument rebutting what dogmeatIB, myself, and others in this thread observe as fundamentally massive weaknesses with this initiative?
Posted by: Michael Heath | July 15, 2009 11:33 AM
"Actually, the bill requires that every member who wants to vote in the affirmative -- to cast a Yes vote in favor of more spending, keeping or creating a new program, or passing a law,"
Then look for a lot of laws that are written like California Propositions, where a "no" vote means that you *do something*.
Posted by: KeithB | July 15, 2009 7:14 PM
democommie:
One of the effects of our process is that bills are a lot shorter. The Resource Management Act is about 500 pages and its considered one of the longest and most complicated bills on the books. Its also worth mentioning that you can't leave the chamber during a session.
Posted by: James K | July 16, 2009 2:13 AM
I can't support the "Read the Bills" act, as written, but there really is no reason we shouldn't expect every member of Congress to read every word they vote on. It would mean fewer and shorter bills, yes. But that need not be paralyzing. Much of what's now in bills could and probably should be pushed off into the area of implementing regulations (already a much larger body than actual legislation). I have the feeling this would reduce the influence of lobbyists, too, but perhaps that's wishful thinking.
Posted by: Nemo | July 17, 2009 7:24 PM