Beldar has a draconian solution to the problem of convoluted bills, with which I heartily agree:
I would genuinely support a Constitutional amendment which required every Congressman and Senator, upon casting every vote, to swear under penalty of perjury — with existing perjury criminal penalties, PLUS instant disqualification from office — that he or she had read every word of everything he or she voted upon. Not just a summary (although they could read summaries too, if they chose) or a recommendation (again, fine as a supplement, but not as a replacement). Enforcement to be by a mechanism where 10% of either chamber’s members could indict and prosecute any member of either chamber for an alleged violation, trial to be held within 30 days on national TV, finder of fact to be a jury of 51 randomly selected voters (one from each state plus the District of Columbia), conviction and expulsion (without appeal) to be based on a simple majority vote.
…This is, and should be, a completely non-partisan “good government” issue. But I’m relatively sure which party’s politicians would bitch and moan the loudest and fight the hardest.
So am I.
Even if they did read/scan all the bills, would there be a quiz to see if they comprehended what they read, connected all the dots, projected long term effects, etc.?
Even if they didn’t connect all the dots on the first few bills, it would have at least one or two side-effects: a longer delay before bad legislation got signed into law, and/or shorter, more comprehensible bills. And, with any luck, a reduction in the amount of pork, addenda, and other detritus would result as well.
Sounds like a version of SarbOx for congressmen. Hear – hear!
And they couldn’t use the defense that they didn’t know it was in the bill..
What about just putting a sunset on all bills passed in Congress of no more than 10 years? That would have real teeth and force a new congress to examine what worked or didn’t work before inflicting their fixes on the general population for the next 10 years. Also, 12 year term limits for Reps and Senators would help as well.
And they couldn’t use the defense that they didn’t know it was in the bill..
Seems fair given that we cannot use that as a defense when dragged before a court of law…
That wouldn’t solve much. You can make them read, but you can’t make them think or exercise good judgement.
The rule change should be: No law may be passed that hasn’t been available for public review for less than 90 days. That gives the public much time to read, think, cogitate, and then make their opinions known.
Will the legislation be called “Leave no Member of Congress Behind”?
I can’t believe we have to have this discussion. Really.
++Term limits
++ Sunset all laws
++ 90 review
++++ Vote them out.
Can you believe 90+ Dems voted AGAINST defunding ACORN? WTF?
Could be solved by the president refusing to sign anything that
was not accompanied by such a statement.
I think that could actually happen if the republicans take over at the mid-term election.
How would one prove that one did not read something. It is a great feat to prove a negative.
How would one prove that one did not read something. It is a great feat to prove a negative.
The burden of proof would be on the legislators to prove the positive. If you actually followed the link, it would be explained.
++ 90 review
Can you believe 90+ Dems voted AGAINST defunding ACORN? WTF?
If you slowed down the legislative process by requiring legislators to read the mind-numbing legislative language of each bill, then you’ll have even more Congressmen voting against defunding ACORN, because there will be time for the furor over the ACORN videos to fade.
“Reforms” like this simply slow (and possibly kill) legislation, whether it’s legislation to reform health care, or cut taxes, or expand “cash for clunkers”, or raise military salaries, or send disaster relief funds to Kansas, or defund ACORN. You might as well ban computers from Capitol Hill and require that every legislator copy out each bill in longhand with a quill pen before being allowed to vote.
Note the political affiliation of the first person to object. Beldar called it right on the money. Thanks for making the point, Jim.
A simpler solution is just to require via Constitutional Amendment that every bill in its final form to be read aloud in English and in a normal conversational voice in each House prior to it being voted on, and only allow those Congresscritters who actually physically sit through the entire reading in the chamber of their house, to vote on the bill.
Actually, require members of each house to do the reading–don’t push it off on pages and aides, too.
I’d also require that no bill shall be voted on by either house that has not IN ITS FINAL FORM been placed before the American people (in an easily accessable format on the Internet) for examination and citizen comment for one full week, AFTER the final reading on the floor of the respective houses. 90 days is too long, IMHO. Make an exception where 2/3 of each house could immediately enact a bill for Presidential signature only for the purposes of declaring war or a national emergency. (Then of course you have to define “national emergency” tightly enough that these weasels won’t declare a hangnail epidemic to be a national emergency.)
I also like the idea of a 10-year automatic sunset of enacted legislation, in conjunction with the above.
Slowing down Congress isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
Here’s the whole text of the bill to defund ACORN:
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3571/text
Might take 10 minutes to read.
The Gov’t health care take over, might take a couple of days to read, and much, much longer to comprehend
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/show
I strongly favor a 90 day review period on legislation.
Here’s the whole text of the bill to defund ACORN:
It’s short, but it does not do what one would expect from its title. For example, it defunds “Any organization that has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency.” That would include, for example, any corporation that backdated stock option grants. So the U.S. government could not purchase any equipment including chips made by Broadcom (maker of 70% of gigabit ethernet chips), or any products made by Apple Computer. Even though the people indicted in those cases are no longer at those companies, the bill does not discriminate. And it has no statute of limitations — if Boeing (or one of the companies it’s absorbed) has ever filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency in its nearly century-long history, say goodbye to the Delta, F-15, F/A-18, F-22, B-1B and B-2, not to mention Air Force One.
Might take 10 minutes to read.
And yet it appears that you, and the people who voted for it, did not actually read it for comprehension.
That could be, Jim. Or, of course, it coudl be that you have no idea what you’re talking about, and none of your bizarre side-effects are plausible.
Show of hands, everybody? What are the odds that 300-odd lawmakers hugely screwed up on the consequences of this short bill? Versus the odds that Jim has his head up his ass?
Versus the odds that Jim has his head up his ass?
The odds that Jim suffers from rectal-cranial inversion are always close to a hundred percent.
What are the odds that 300-odd lawmakers hugely screwed up on the consequences of this short bill?
LOL. This thread is worth it if only to see Carl rush to defend the intellectual honor of our members of Congress :).
Go ahead and explain to me why the bill would not defund, in its words, “Any organization that has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency.”
The odds that Jim suffers from rectal-cranial inversion are always close to a hundred percent.
I’d say that the odds of Rand resorting to an ad hominem comment have a strong positive correlation with the odds that he has no argument to offer on the merits.
Yes, well, trolls with their heads up their nethers would say that sort of thing.
What merits?
I am utterly ignorant of the manner in which legislation is interpreted. As is his wont Jim is focused on one clause of a definitional paragraph. The rest of the legislation provides clearer, more explicit context. Jim mentions none of it — all too typical for Jim, and quite sophmoric.
Do the courts rely on the text in toto to ascertain legislative purpose or intent? If so, how?
I’m very much in favor of the idea that lawmakers should read proposed laws before they vote on them.
I’m in favor of citizens reading them too. I’m having trouble with this one — I followed Fred K.’s link above, but I wonder if my browser is not displaying the rest of the law. Do you folks see just one page?
If it is just one page, I don’t see why Jim is wrong. Please dispense with the name calling for a moment, and read the bill. Is it really just one page? Why is Jim wrong? The bill seems to appy to any “covered organizations”, and the definition provided for “covered organizations” covers much more than just Acorn.
Also, I don’t even understand why Acorn is defined and singled out, since it is just one of many such covered organizations. As the bill is written, Acorn appears to be singled out in a non-functional way. (I’m not talking about the merits of Acorn – I’m just questioning the sensibility of the bill – it appears to mention Acorn but not do anything with it, like a computer program that allocates space for a variable but doesn’t ever use it.)
I’m suffering from insomnia, so I apologize if I’ve missed something, but I’ve tried to be careful.
As far as I can see, this is indeed a case of “legislative malpractice”.
Oh, wait, I think I see — it declares that Acorn is one of the covered orgnizations, which makes me think that this is an example of the legislative branch interfering with the judicial branch, since the bill seems to declare Acorn guilty instead of simply accepting a court’s judgement. I wonder what would happen if the bill passes and then a court finds Acorn innocent.
Nevertheless, I can’t see how the bill is limited to just Acorn, and thus I can’t see why Jim is wrong.
the bill seems to declare Acorn guilty
There is no such declaration.
Please dispense with the name calling for a moment, and read the bill.
Indeed.
I’m suffering from insomnia, so I apologize if I’ve missed something, but I’ve tried to be careful.
Please try harder in the future, as you didn’t miss something. Instead, you included the term guilty, which is not found in the text of the bill.
Section 2-A offers various prohibitions of covered orgnaizations.
Section 2-B declares what a “covered organization” means – an organization which has been indicted for [illegal campaign and election activities] or an organization which did not comply with certain lobbying requirements, or an organization that has filed a fraudulent claim with a US or state regulatory agency, or an organization that employs or contracts with people who have done one of the above.
Section 2-C says “Organization” includes ACORN (and affiliates).
So, while “guilty” is the wrong word, isn’t 2-C declaring that ACORN either did one of the bad things listed in 2-B or was indicted for the things specified in 2-B?
Anyway, why isn’t Jim right? Given what section 2-B covers, doesn’t the bill apply to vast portions of the US business world? If passed, would the bill cancel many or all of the largest NASA and DoD contracts? If not, why not?
I agree that the bill as written is overly broad. I would have defined a covered organization as one that “…has been indicted for voter registration fraud in multiple states, and has been caught on video tape encouraging and enabling the illegal importation into the US of minor girls for the purposes of prostitution and sex slavery.” That would probably have narrowed it down sufficiently, without being a bill of attainder.
Thanks very much for the reply. That sure would narrow it down, and it would also drive home the anti-Acorn nature of the bill.
The following question isn’t just about ACORN – it is about all of us.
Is it legal to ban people and corporations on the basis of an indictment, or does there have to be a conviction? Also, is it proper to ban on the basis of an indictment? Seems like this skirts our “innocent until proven guilty” principle.
“Innocent until proven guilty” is a judicial principle. Congress isn’t part of the judiciary.
If an act of Congress isn’t ex-post-facto or a bill of attainder (or whatever else the Constitution prohibits of Congress), the only recourse is a presidential veto or an voter revolt in the next election.
So, while “guilty” is the wrong word, isn’t 2-C declaring that ACORN either did one of the bad things listed in 2-B or was indicted for the things specified in 2-B?
No, but that’s because you are using the term declaring.
In fact, it obvious doesn’t do what you suggest, because it required section 2C. Otherwise, section 2B was adequate to include ACORN. It seems quite apparent that the overly broad definition of “covered organization”, that includes the declaration involving indictments, was not sufficient to include ACORN.
But hey, that’s why bills need to be read. Having read this bill, I think section 2B paragraphs 1-4 be deleted and essentially replaced by section 2C paragraphs. If you want to defund ACORN (as the alternate title suggests), then defund ACORN. If you want to defund organizations with federal indictments, then write that law.
I’ve just spent a pleasant few minutes reviewing the text of the constitution. I think the separation of powers might have been bucked up a bit! I also think ACORN could argue that this is an ex post facto bill as it pertains to them.
The definition of ex post facto was first given in Calder v Bull (3 US 386 [1798]), and since I assume this is the definition used today (see my source), I’ll include the definition below. I think ACORN could be said to be covered by “3d”, which prohibits inflicting a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime.
“1st. Every law that makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2d. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed. 3d. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offense, in order to convict the offender.”
Click on my name for the source.
Fred K, thank you for the link opencongress.org I just noticed the comments section, annotating certain sentences of the Defund Acorn bill. What a good idea. This is a really terrific website!
Leland, I might be approaching the law from a computer programming perspective when I use words like “declare”. Sorry. I agree with the overall point you are making, but I think section 2B covers Acorn, and I think we disagree about the functional relationship between section 2B and 2C. Both of us agree the bill should say what it was intended to say.
I think ACORN could be said to be covered by “3d”, which prohibits inflicting a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime.
This is not a criminal punishment. Congress is simply declining to provide ACORN with federal funding, something to which it has no intrinsic entitlement.
A prohibition strikes me as a punishment while a simple decline to fund is just business. If the wording was “the organization is prohibited to receive funds from government”, I think it woud clearly be a punishment. In the bill, congress is prohibited from giving funds to the organization, which amounts to the same thing, but oddly, I think that strengthens your argument.
bob-1 – Actually, receiving funds from government and being given funds by government are not the same at all. The former might be payment for goods or services rendered. Are the people from whom the government buys stationery being given money?
Fletcher, I was thinking of payment for services rendered in both cases.