In the pantheon of great lines suitable for induction into “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations” is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 2010 comment about Obamacare: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
While that seemed outrageous and even comical to many at the time, it has become an all-too familiar pattern for legislators who focus more on TV appearances, fundraising and their re-elections than on the laws they pass without reading them first.
The latest bank-breaking measure to narrowly pass the House (even some Democrats voted against it) is a $3 trillion package styled “coronavirus relief.” It is more than 1,800 pages long. The disingenuous title is an effort to position it as something that will be more acceptable than honest descriptions such as “boondoggle” and “vote buying.” The package is supposed to help people struggling due to lost jobs and closed businesses, but it is more favorable to Democrat constituencies and left-leaning interest groups that rely on their party for bailouts.
There have been efforts, especially in recent years, to lengthen the time between when a bill is written (usually by staff members and lobbyists) and when members vote on it, giving everyone plenty of time to read the bill. The latest stimulus bill is only the most recent example of what happens when that doesn’t take place. Passed by the slim margin of 208 to 199 – an argument for a Republican House majority in the coming election – the measure contains significant amounts of cash for states with Democratic governors and legislatures, which have misspent taxpayer money and now find themselves in deep debt.
Commenting on efforts to allow more time for members of Congress to read bills before voting on them, Quentin Kidd, department of political science professor at Newport University, has said: “I unfortunately don’t think that members of Congress will use that time reading the bill. They will use that time doing other things, and they will continue to do what most of them do right now, which is to pay attention to their staff or listen to what lobbyists say.”