Sufficient Time for Legislation to be Read

Do you remember a while back when the democrats were trying to ram health care reform through the legislative process so fast that nobody could read the bill and see what was in it? Well, that one was probably the most hated one at the time, but there have been other bills rushed through the process so fast that people don't even know what's being proposed before it's being voted on (granted, usually not a bill that's over 1,000 pages, like the health care reform law).

So what do we do to fix this problem? Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has an idea, and proposed a resolution to the Senate a few days ago. S.Res.82 is a short and to-the-point resolution that will require 1 session day per 20 pages of legislative text, plus another session day for "anything less than 20."

So, for example, a 20-page bill would require 1 session day of "reading time" before it could be considered for a vote on the Senate floor, and a 25-page bill would require 2 session days.

Of course, there's always a way around it, if for example, something major happened, and we needed to act *now* - what would we do? With a 2/3 vote in the Senate, they could waive these requirements and consider a bill earlier than the mandated time. Now, this is just a resolution in the Senate, which means it will not affect actual law, or the House of Representatives - just standard procedures for the Senate.

So is the House of Representatives doing anything similar? Kind of. The closest thing we could find was H.Res.30 which would require that a "plain English section-by-section" analysis of every legislation be posted publicly online for 72 hours. But, we feel the wording of this resolution is weak at best. For instance, the resolution doesn't say who writes the "plain English analysis," so it could be very biased, or miss points, or misinterpret points. Also, no where does the resolution actually require the official bill text to be available for 72 hours, just a "plain English analysis."

Why is this resolution worded so weakly, when Rand Paul's resolution in the Senate is quite descriptive, forward, and strong? Well, H.Res.30 was proposed by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), a democrat. So, our Republican majority in the House can't come up with anything to mirror Rand Paul's legislation, and all we have to go on is Deutch's garbage, full of possible loopholes, and not very demanding? Send Ted Deutch an email and tell him that H.Res.30 is not good enough.