On Reading the Bill

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Should members of Congress read the bills they vote on?

It seems like the answer is an obvious "yes." That intuitive response is what the Sunlight Foundation is counting on. Sunlight, a Washington-based transparency and good government group, has been leading the charge for the "read the bill" movement. But a closer look at the "Read the Bill" website reveals what's really going on.

Sunlight isn't actually lobbying for a law requiring that members of Congress read legislation before voting on it. How would you enforce such a law? Quizzes? Swearing under oath? Instead, Sunlight is pushing for the institution of a "72-hour rule" requiring that non-emergency legislation be posted online for three days before debate begins. That is a good idea (pretty much every other good government group has endorsed it), but it won't necessarily do anything to ensure that members of Congress read the bill, let alone understand it. In fact, if you take a look at the video promoting their campaign on this page, it's clear that Sunlight is using the oldest trick in the process reformers' book: using current political issues, in this case right-wing rage about health care and the stimulus, to get people interested in process reforms—in this case, the 72-hour rule.

Most process issues in Congress are only important to one party at a time, depending on whether that party is in or out of power. (Sunlight's Paul Blumenthal has written a history of the 72-hour rule that highlights this very problem.) Reading the bill, involving the minority in legislation, not writing laws "behind closed doors," protecting the filibuster, oversight—these things suddenly become much more important when your party is out of power. (Update: term limits, too!) Likewise, governing parties love to complain about the filibuster supermajority requirement, delaying tactics, the slow pace of judicial confirmations, and so on. It's very easy to find members of Congress contradicting themselves on these questions depending on whether they're in the majority or the minority.

Of course, the flagrant hypocrisy of most lawmakers doesn't mean they're are always wrong. Posting bills online will give outside groups like Sunlight more time to analyze legislative language and figure out what exactly the bills do. That's probably a net good. But the real issue is not whether your representatives simply read the bills they vote on. It's whether they understand them. For that, you need far more sweeping reform.

Sunlight has slammed Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) for asking: "What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?" But Conyers is right. Bruce Bartlett explains:

While a seemingly reasonable demand, it is, in fact, a waste of time.

The reason becomes obvious the moment one actually reads legislative language. Here is a section I pulled at random from the health bill:

           (a) AMENDMENTS TO THE EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT INCOME SECURITY ACT OF 1974.--

                    (1) REDUCTION IN LOOK-BACK PERIOD.-Section 701(a)(1) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (29 U.S.C. 181(a)(1)) is amended by striking ''6-month period'' and inserting ''30-day period''.

                    (2) REDUCTION IN PERMITTED PREEXISTING CONDITION LIMITATION PERIOD.-Section 701(a)(2) of such Act (29 U.S.C. 1181(a)(2)) is amended by striking ''12 months'' and inserting ''3 months'', and by striking ''18 months'' and inserting ''9 months''.

                    (3) SUNSET OF INTERIM LIMITATION.-Section 701 of such Act (29 U.S.C. 1181) is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

          ''(h) TERMINATION.-This section shall cease to apply to any group health plan as of the date that such plan becomes subject to the requirements of section 211 of the (relating to prohibiting preexisting condition exclusions).''.

What is immediately obvious is that none of this language makes the slightest bit of sense without reference to the underlying law that is being amended. To begin to comprehend what this language seeks to accomplish one would need to have a copy of ERISA as well. Then one would have to see what exactly these additional words do to change whatever section of law is being amended.

But this is just the beginning because many terms like "preexisting condition" have a precise legal definition that may be spelled out in some other law or changed in some other part of the legislation. Moreover, that definition may have been clarified in some way by government regulations or court cases that are not even referenced but may be critical to understanding precisely what the new legislation actually accomplishes.

Better "read the bill" reform would start, I think, with extending to all of Congress the Senate Finance Committee's tradition of debating and voting on bills written in "conceptual language"—otherwise known as plain English. If that was the standard for what was being voted on and discussed and posted on the web in advance, ordinary people and members of Congress (and journalists, for that matter) would be much more likely to actually understand what was going on.

The obstacle that prevents this from happening, as Bartlett hints at in his excellent post, is that a lot of people in Washington have jobs deciphering legislation for members of Congress. Those people, more often than not, are lobbyists—some of whom seem to have more influence on the language in bills than elected representatives do. Plus, many members of Congress have an interest in the public not always understanding exactly what they're doing. The veil of legalese helps them do unpopular things that they think are necessary without having to worry about trying to convince anyone. It also helps them give handouts to favored industries without having it look too blatant. And it helps politicians (and their surrogates) get away with telling outrageous lies about the contents of the bill (see: death panels.) Plain English legislation posted on the Internet would cut out many of the middlemen and would make members of Congress more vulnerable to popular pressure. You'd still get people like Sen. James Inhofe who would make up their minds without reading the bill, but that kind of behavior would be less excusable. Wouldn't that be nice?

"Reading the bill, involving the minority in legislation, not writing laws "behind closed doors," protecting the filibuster, oversight"

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

Nick, I know you smoke stupid and fart propaganda, but please just stop it. I live in an Internet era, with tools like Wikipedia, Google Docs, Google Wave, and many many online tools that can be used to link to underlying laws, annotate websites, markup documents, share and collaborate.

Putting this shit online was of course a promise Changey McHopey made to us, and if laws were put online, and if Congress and Hopey McChangey was interested in the people, we would soon have websites geared to discussing, annotating, marking up the proposed laws with the underlying laws they are changing and making it understandable by the average citizen and the average corrupt politician too.

Your argument:

1) Sunlight's proposition is bad because Sunlight is rightwing. That's ad hominem
2) Sunlight's proposition is bad because I have a better solution to a different problem. That's apples and oranges.

Get the shit online. That's different from what form the shit should take. You use one to distract from the other to defend those who deserve no defense, except that they belong to our party.

Nick, please stop afflicting the afflicted and comforting the comforted. I think you're doing it wrong.

My argument is not what you say it is.

You are completely mischaracterizing my argument. I never said Sunlight's proposal is bad.

1) Sunlight is not right-wing, and I don't say that they are. They're simply co-opting right-wing political messages to push for process reform. I think that's fine—I'm just pointing it out. Change Congress often does the same thing with left-wing political messages. It's how process reformers get people to care.

2) I say in the post that Sunlight's 72-hour proposal is probably a net good. Congress should make it a law. But that won't solve the problem of legislators not reading/understanding the bill, which is what the name of the campaign suggests it's trying to solve. If the campaign's really about "putting that shit online," that's something that's worthwhile, but entirely different.

You're right, I did misread you in part. And I apologize, though you might want to ask yourself if your writing was all that clear.

Your point still comes down to:

Conyers is right not to read the bill, instead of posting bills online, let's force all bills to be readable!

Conyers is wrong not to read the bill, and you shouldn't defend that behavior ever. He is one of the few guys in a position to make sure bills are read, and bills are comprehensible. Your argument that bills should first be readable is apples and oranges as well as a way of making sure nothing ever happens. (The perfect is the enemy of the good.)

Let's get the bills online and stop rationalizing why Obama doesn't have to fulfill that campaign promise.

I don't say in the post that we shouldn't put the bills online. We should, and I say so in the post. The 72-hour rule is a good idea. But that won't solve the problem of legislators not reading/understanding the bills. That's what Conyers is right about, and it's a fair point he's making: there's no point to reading a bill you can't understand. Our goal should be to have legislators who understand the bills they are voting on. We can get closer to that goal by using Plain English. That's the point of the post.

I agree that the bills should be online. I'm not making the perfect the enemy of the good. I support the good and want to push for the perfect. Your basic premise that I disagree with posting bills online is just wrong.

You're right that Conyers has a responsibility to understand the bills he's voting on—if he thinks they're incomprehensible, he should be working to make them readable. It's not okay for legislators to not understand the bills they're voting on.

While I take your point about Conyers' responsibility in all this, I think the situation is more complicated than you suggest. My suspicion is that most legislators think that the bills are incomprehensible, and only Conyers is safe/foolish enough to say so. He should be criticized for voting on incomprehensible legislation, but it's good that he's drawing attention to the problem. It's bad to admit that you can't understand the bills in their present form. But isn't it worse to not understand the bill and then pretend that you do and there isn't a problem? That's what most legislators do. It seems like you're demanding that I criticize Conyers for telling the truth about something that most of his peers are probably lying about.

You accuse Nick of ad hominem, yet call POTUS Hopey McChangey and Changey McHopey? Then say Nick smokes stupid and fart propaganda?

Your presentation is seriously lacking.

Did you think the president's name is O'bama ?

Do you think the President is Irish?

Thanks for clarifying

I can't believe an intelligent person would vote on something they do not understand.How can any adult in their right mind not know what they are voting for or against before they cast their vote? Congressmen had better find out what is in those bills before they become binding on the American people's lives or else get out of the Congress that is messing up our lives. We aren't paying big bucks to have imbecils represent us. If you can't understand what is in a bill, you need to find out in a quick hurry or at least don't vote "for"it to become law.

Believe it or not, it's possible to "understand" things you haven't "read". Ever heard of Cliff's Notes? Ever seen a movie made from a book? Ever had something explained to you? Did you "read" Sunlight's proposal linked to above, or did you read Baumann's precis and then jump in to comment? (To understand that sentence, did you look up "precis" in the dictionary and see that the mere existence of the word refutes your "argument" or did you infer its meaning from context?) Etc.

I agree with Baumann, Sunlight, and you that this proposal is a good idea. Now stop being a petulant dumbass, and advocate for it in a sensible way.

I bet you've voted for candidates without knowing how they stand on all the issues. In fact, I bet you've voted for candidates based SOLELY on the (R) after their name on the ballot.

Hardly dipshit, I'm probably a more consistent D voter than you ever were.

I think it's important to clarify what we're talking about when we're talking about "understanding" a bill. Legislators generally understand the rules and regulations and potential impacts of a bill when they vote on it. They have staffers and lobbyists and think tank people and lawyers and colleagues who read the bill and explain it to them.

What I'm talking about when I say that most legislators probably don't "understand" the bills they're voting on is that few of them can figure out what the bills actually mean by simply reading the bill themselves. That's what we need to fix: we should make it so that an ordinary person can understand proposed legislation simply by reading it, without any outside interpreters.

DownsizeDC.org proposed the Read the Bills Act during the Bush Administration in response to bills like the Patriot Act. We are still pushing it, and it has teeth:

- bills must be posted seven days online before the final vote is taken
- bills must be read before a quorum in Congress (meaning bills will be prioritized by necessity)
- members who vote for a bill must sign an affidavit that he or she has read the bill (or heard read) AND understands it

The incentives will be for bills:
- to have readable language
- to have no corrupt last-minute insertions
- to be shorter, addressing narrow, defined subjects at a time.

Hey Nick, given how Genentech wrote the speeches of many Ds and Rs, you still think it's a good idea to let these SOBs get away with not reading the bills too?