Fester's Place

Don't Read the Bills

Goose is linking to an organization called Downsize D.C. that is proposing several key Congressional rule changes that would require Congressmen to affirm or swear that they have read every bill that they have voted upon. This sounds like a good idea from a good governance perspective and it sounds like an even better idea if your objective is to completely gridlock Congress from doing anything. However, if one believes in the potentiality of good governance, this is a horrendous idea.

Each House office has a little more than million dollars to perform its role every year. Some of this money is spent on coffee, another sum is spent on franking, but the vast majority of this money is spent on paying for staff. Some of the staffers are useless when discussing policy, but a quasi competent Congressman will have at least one or two policy experts on staff. It is their job to be able to read through a bill and present an accurate overview of the highlights, the incentives created, the distortions present and probable and where the poison pills are. To do this requires time, so I agree with the Downsize D.C. proposal to mandate that every bill that is to be voted on the House floor has at least a week outside of committee instead of a three day life cycle of introduction, committee, full House votes.

Most of the votes, as Dean at Today's Democracy points out, would not require a waiting time as they are near useless proclomations and short bills. However as Matthew Yglesias amply demonstrates, the complex bills, the ones with the highest probability of strange things going on in them require time and EXPERTISE to understand what the hell is happening. Several years ago I had to read the entire ERISA Act with its amendments, reauthorizations, and regulations for a research project. It took several months of cross correllating, speaking to experts, and banging my head against the wall to fully understand what was going on to every potential affected party. A single reading of that act, especially as a signinificant portion of the act is "strike X replace with Y in sub section 43.1..." would give no new knowledge or advantage to a Congressman who is considering how to vote while they are being denied the opportunity to learn about anything else.

This is a seemingly good idea that would be fine for the vast majority of junk bills, but the serious policy bills are most likely going to be the most complex pieces of legislation out there, and a single reading by a non-expert will not be that useful.

posted by fester @ 07:47