What are your thoughts on bundling legislation to other legislation in order to get it passed. This was done by the Republicans quite a bit during the Bush years when they would attach military funding to unrelated bills. Most recently, the governor of North Carolina signed in abortion restrictions attached to legislation about motorcycles. I'm of the opinion that legislation should be about one issue. If it's a health care bill, it only contains issues strictly related to health care. Military bill contains military stuff. I think you get the picture.
Each and every bit should be voted on of its own merit. If it won't fly on its own, then it doesn't deserve to be law. All of these attachments, amendments and riders are why some good laws get vetoed, and why some bad laws don't because of a rider that would be hugely unpopular being vetoed.
I like it actually. It gets deals made and some things done. If everything was separate hardly and votes would be cast and government gridlock would be much worst. However some deals made are not in the citizens best interests.
I am not entirely opposed to "pork" to a certain degree. However, I feel that there should be an annual "pork" bill where the legislators must sign their names onto any proposals they make for all to see on the interwebz. This way they can still get their deal making done which is sometimes is necessary evil of democracy but at least it will no longer be hidden in completely unrelated bills. I would go further and limit the size of bills to no more than 50 pages or so in order to avoid more of these travesties like Obamacare in the future where not only did politicians openly admit they never bothered to read the legislation.........some of them were actually proud of it. That (*)(*)(*)(*) needs to stop yesterday.
I'd go a step further... Bills should be no longer than 1-2 pages long in 10-12pt font. Why a 20-50pg short story?
Take a look at one of those bills once. First they double space them, they also have an addiction to inserting the definition of just about every word or phrase in the bill so that there is no way to wiggle out of it with legal-fu. Then there are all the credits and the preface etc. Believe me there isn't much that can actually be put into a 50 page bill aside from the very basics. Having only 1 to 2 pages isn't practical as they would be literally voting on just about every single provision in a bill which is akin to the amending process which in itself is very long. They don't need to do that twice. Around 50 pages is plenty to get the very basics in but not enough to fill it up with fluff. Its also something that can be posted online and easily read by the general public or at least summarized by journalists and bloggers for public consumption. I have to read articles that approach that length for my classes and it only takes about half an hour.
Each and EVERY bill should be READ, so it's merits can be determined. That's the first hurdle. Note the success of recent legislation that couldn't be read until it was passed... Not only should bills be small and focused, the Constitution should be amended to give the president Line Item Veto authority to stop any individual spending or regulatory item from becoming law, a veto which can, of course, be overridded by House and Senate votes....but note that the veto has to happen before the bill is signed. - - - Updated - - - Are you saying that requiring bills be limited to specific subjects would SLOW DOWN THE GOVERNMENT? Gee, what an EXCELLENT idea!
Yeah, like the O-BAAA-MACare deal. Gridlock is good most of the time. What happened when the illegal Senator Franken passed O-BAAA-MACare? People are going to start dying because Franken took away their insurance coverage, him and Obama, and that wouldn't have been the case if the illegal Senator Franken hadn't been there to grease away gridlock.
Most people shouldn't have to take a half an hour out of their day to read a simple bill. There need not be definitions upon definitions for purposes of legalese so that the general public can understand something that will effect their daily lives. How long is the Declaration of Independence or Constitution? Exactly... not very long. The problem is lawyers and the fact that Congress is infested with them. These are laws, yes, but it shouldn't take a lawyer to decrypt and/or understand them. As mentioned above, Government moves entirely too fast as it is. It used to be that Congress would meet only twice a year, and in that time, they would argue, vehemently, over new legislation. These days, it seems they're meeting almost weekly and passing new legislation all the time. It's ridiculous. They should limit bills to one subject and it should be voted on as such, and they should be written in a simplified manner, where even the dumbest person in the United States can understand it.
There is no way you can get anything done on 1-2 pages. That is what I am saying. I have enough faith that people can figure out what is in a 50 or less page bill. If they can't then we are simply to far gone and it won't matter how small the bills are. Congress already debates all the fine ponts that is what the amendment process is all about. As I said go and actually read one of these bills. For every sentence about the subject matter there is an equivalent amount of space dedicated to legal definitions which are essential considering that the government is full of lawyers looking to weasel out of laws and agreements. I live in grown up world not childish hyperbole land.
So the alternative would be for people to take half an hour every day reading 20 different small bills. How exactly is that a better use of time than reading one bill for half an hour. Most people don't do it now but more will do it and especially bloggers and journalists will find it much easier to summarize a smaller 50 page bill. And when I say 50 that is the max. If its just one particular bill about making a new holiday obviously they can do that on a couple of pages.
The Constitution wasn't set up to "get things done", it was set up to protect liberty. As you will be happy to note, the highest law of the land is only a handful of pages, there's no particular reason why laws under that Constitution have to be completely unreadble masses of legalese that can't be understood or applied until 20 more pages of bureaucratic legal crap are written for each page of the original law. Sure, "two pages" may be an over simplification. Two thousand pages is a flat impossiblity. Two thousand pages that is signed into law before any single human has even read them is a criminal abuse of power. Is "persons are being denied health insurance because of 'pre-existing' conditions" a national problem? What debate occured to answer this basic question first of all? Weren't none. Should the matter be handled on the state or federal level? What does the Constitution say on the matter? Where was the debate on this issue? Weren't none. What proposals were brought forward to address the problem? None were debated. NOTHING about the O-BAAA-MACare bill was debated, on the floor of either house. What really happened? That issue was bundled with hundreds of other issues and special interests wrote a bill (not the Congress) and it was rammed through and NOBODY read it, because it was too damn big. Everyone knows that nobody read it because the Congressional staffers even allowed a section making them pay for something, which would never happen if the bill had been readable. The Mayor is perfectly willing to compromise on the length of the bill. Here: Constitutional Amendment:No bill shall be voted for passage after the final amendments to the bill have been written until 30 calendar days plus (N-100)/15 calendar days have passed from the time the final amended bill is posted on an publicly viewable internet website, where N is the number of pages in the final amended bill. Any amendment added after said posting resets the passage countup to zero. This requirement may be waived is 60% of the House and Senate agree that a national emergency is in progress. There. Following the above formula, a 2000 page will be be voted on for passage 30 days plus (N-100)/15 days = 157 days for public review. THAT would have cooked the O-BAAA-MACare goose, but good. Nobody can say that there was a national emergency in process over health care. There. Following the above formula, a 1000 page will be be voted on for passage 90 days for public review, and a 3000 page bill would not be voted on close to the next ellection.
Aren't we trying to tone/slow down Congress? They used to only meet twice a year. Now they're meeting almost every day, passing new legislation. Yes, I would prefer 20 different small bills to one large bill. They should all have to think about and vote on one bill for one subject and should be held accountable for it. How many people, do you think, actually know that the government took over the student loan industry with Obamacare? Not many, I bet... unless they're reading non-MSM news sites.
All laws are passed to govern over us, in one capacity or another, they should be written in a clearer form in which every citizen with a high school diploma can understand. They should pertain only to the title of the law. If it is a law about Defense Spending then that is all that should be covered. I also believe every law should be read aloud in both Houses before a vote and every lawmaker who is going to vote should be present, this reading should also be televised or otherwise broadcast so every citizen has the opportunity to see exactly what our politicians are doing. That would cut down the BS a lot...
I'm totally against this practice, and it's one of the main reasons our debt is completely out of control. Requiring clean bills would be one step towards solving that problem.
