Now, that would be quite a time...
Chances are you've seen this video of John Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, making fun of the suggestion that legislators should actually read proposed bills before they vote on them. It's not anything new.
Last year I questioned my State Representative, Tom Saunders, about a particularly stupid bill that had just been passed. He told me he didn't remember hearing anything about it. We had the same discussion a couple of years earlier when a bill was passed that required special permission to buy more than two gallons of paint thinner at a time.
At first he denied voting for such a bill, and when I told him it passed 82-0, he explained again that he simply didn't have time to read all of the bills that they voted on.
I guess that's the way it's going to be, but I did read an excellent suggestion over at Tom Knapp's website the other day.
Let's get a couple of fun-loving congressional staffers to slip some additional language into the bills before they are voted on. Maybe somewhere on page 568 of the Federal Health care Bill we could insert the line, "Any congressperson voting for this ridiculous piece of legislation will immediately forfeit his or her office and salary".
In the best case scenario, we could clean out a lot of problems in the capitol.
At the very least, it might cause them to start reading the bills before they voted on them, and that's bound to cut down on the number of bills that could be passed.
I think that's a good thing.
Last year I questioned my State Representative, Tom Saunders, about a particularly stupid bill that had just been passed. He told me he didn't remember hearing anything about it. We had the same discussion a couple of years earlier when a bill was passed that required special permission to buy more than two gallons of paint thinner at a time.
At first he denied voting for such a bill, and when I told him it passed 82-0, he explained again that he simply didn't have time to read all of the bills that they voted on.
I guess that's the way it's going to be, but I did read an excellent suggestion over at Tom Knapp's website the other day.
Let's get a couple of fun-loving congressional staffers to slip some additional language into the bills before they are voted on. Maybe somewhere on page 568 of the Federal Health care Bill we could insert the line, "Any congressperson voting for this ridiculous piece of legislation will immediately forfeit his or her office and salary".
In the best case scenario, we could clean out a lot of problems in the capitol.
At the very least, it might cause them to start reading the bills before they voted on them, and that's bound to cut down on the number of bills that could be passed.
I think that's a good thing.
Labels: John Conyers, Tom Saunders
posted by Rex Bell at 6:05 PM
1 Comments:
Hi Rex,
We think it should also include that they forfeit their pension too!
Great post. Keep up the great work, and thanks for all that you do for liberty.
Jill & Eric
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