Read the Bill

Yesterday on the way home National Public Radio had a piece on protesters expecting congressmen to read a bill before they vote on it. It was clear that pushing bills through votes before the bill is read is the norm in Congress. I suspect that most congressmen simply trust the bill's content, constructed by congressional committee, to be firstly what it purport to be and secondly to be legally sound. Given this implied or practical trust, that it would be reasonable for most of Congress to vote on a bill they have not read. NPR's slant was that this has been going on all along and thus should be acceptable. It is not. Just because a process has continued to occur, and perhaps even accepted as standard practice, does not make it either sound or acceptable. Truly faulty reasoning.

If they think that such trust is sufficient, then the bill should be voted on by all citizens in the US. But that is currently not possible. Until then, I expect my congressman to at least give a damn, show some professional curiosity to know and understand what is in a bill when they vote for it. If they cannot understand it, they either should not be a congressman or the bill is too complicated to pass. Passing a tortuous complicated bill into law results in either enlargement of a faceless bureaucracy that implement such laws, and or loop holes that would devalue the intent of the law. Either is unacceptable.