Glenn Reynolds, advancing the conservative talking point du jour, asks: “Is it representative government when your representatives don’t read the bill?”
Perhaps not. But if not, then it also wasn’t “representative government” when the Republican Congress passed the 342-page-long Patriot Act, or the 415-page-long Medicare prescription drug benefit bill, or the 1,700-plus-page-long Bush/Cheney energy bill of 2005, without reading them.
Because if you think each and every member of the GOP actually pored over each and every word of those bills, not to mention all the countless others they passed during the reign of Gingrich/Hastert/Dole/Lott/Frist between 1995 and 2007, then I’ve got a shovel-ready bridge-construction stimulus project in Brooklyn to sell you.
And yet, I don’t remember Reynolds & co. shouting “READ THE BILL!!!” when it was Republicans in charge. Which, I hasten to add, is not actually a defense of the practice of voting for legislation without reading it. It’s merely an attack on the credibility of many of the practice’s current critics.
That most of the present criticism is partisan hackery and hypocrisy is clear. However, even hacks, hypocrites and broken clocks are occasionally right. So… if I were going to mount an defense of the practice itself, what would I say? Well, I’d start with the snarky comment: “Um, that’s why they have staff.” And then I would proceed along these lines:
Saying “don’t vote on the bill without reading it” has an instinctive appeal. It feels obviously right. How dare those bozos pass legislation without reading it? They don’t even know what they’re voting on! It’s an easy argument to make, and a difficult one to rebut, because any rebuttal seems so counterintuitive. Of course they should read the bill!
As a practical matter, however, there are simply far too many bills — each of which are, of necessity, many many pages long — for each representative to read each word of each one. And even if they did read each word, odds are they wouldn’t understand what they’re reading, and little if anything would be accomplished.
(Why, you ask, are bills lengthy “of necessity”? Because legislation is complicated! And if you keep bills short, in spite of the complexity of the subject matter, you open the door for, gasp, activist judges to define the law’s true meaning through creative “interpretation” of barely-fleshed-out language.)
Congress would never have time to do anything else. Representatives and senators would spend their lives reading… and reading… and reading. They’d be able to vote on, oh I don’t know, a few dozen bills a year. You think we have gridlock in Washington now? It would be orders of magnitude worse.
To which I suppose some conservatives might respond, that’s great, our federal government should be doing less. But of course, just maintaining and tweaking the massive federal government that we already have — without expanding it — requires a ton of legislative action. Dismantling the behemoth, if that were the goal, would require even more legislation. And, as I said, legislation needs to be detailed, and thus lengthy, lest judges and executive department officials become de facto legislators, even more than they already are.
Bottom line: In no plausible universe can Congress do its job properly without producing thousands upon thousands (upon thousands!) of pages of legislation each year. And until our federal government acquires jurisdiction over the operation of the Earth’s rotation and revolution, Congress can’t add hours to the day, nor days to the year. So there is never going to be enough time for each member to personally read all of those pages.
Thus, whatever your political persuasion, the following is a fact, whether you want to admit it or not: If every legislator were to read every word of every bill, such a practice would, as a practical matter, greatly decrease the ability of our Congress to get anything done — in which case, Republicans would inevitably complain about the “do-nothing Democratic Congress”!
Furthermore, even if we limit ourselves to the “important” legislation, and say that each member should at least read those bills in their entirety, the practicalities still intrude. Reading many hundreds of pages of dry legal documents per year might be possible for each member of Congress, but it’s still a huge time sink, and it raises very serious questions about what is being gained by all that lost time. Legislation is written by lawyers, for lawyers. It’s extremely technical, and often quite difficult to understand. (Trust me on this. I’ve read statutes.) Even after reading every word of a 1,000-page bill, your average senator or representative is still going to need to find a more knowledgeable person and ask them, “So, what the Hell does all that mean?” In which case, what’s the point? What was actually gained from all that reading, aside from pacifying a few Tea Partiers?
So, instead of following the intuitive, but ultimately illogical and counterproductive, path suggested by Reynolds and others, our representatives — of both parties — do something eminently rational: they hire qualified staff to do the initial reading of each bill, especially the lengthy and important ones. At least I assume there are staff members who do this; I confess I am not intimately familiar with the inner workings of congressional offices, and if nobody is reading these bills, I’ll admit that’s a different matter. But presumably aides are reading them, and then hopefully, those aides give their bosses a good summary, and point them to any particularly problematic or important portions. Also, members are trusting their fellow members, particualrly those on the relevant committees, to properly summarize the legislation for them. This, too, is quite rational, and prevents a lot of unnecessary and useless duplication of effort.
Is this an ideal setup? Perhaps not. But we don’t live in an ideal world, where time is no object and members face no conflicting demands on their energies. Is the present system far more efficient than having 535 senators and representatives individually read tens (hundreds?) of thousands of pages of legalese each year? Obviously. Is it how the real world works? Absolutely. Or do you think every CEO of every corporation reads every word of every contract he signs, every policy he puts in place, every SEC filing, etc.?
There are only 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 365 days in a year. Those immutable facts are largely why the concept of “delegation” exists. No one person can do everything, so people in positions of authority hire aides to do the grunt work, while they handle the big-picture details themselves. And if you can’t trust your aides to properly do the work you delegate to them, and give you the information you need (e.g., pointing you to key/problematic provisions of important bills), then you need to hire new aides.
In short, “read the bill” is not actually an argument of any great substance, and it is most certainly not an indictment of the Democratic Congress in particular.
P.S. To the objection that congresscritters cannot constitutionally delegate their duty to review legislation to others, I would respond that countless professionals — lawyers, for instance — have oaths and ethical obligations which they are personally required to uphold, and yet they routinely delegate certain duties (e.g., to paralegals and secretaries) even though those duties implicate their solemn ethical and professional responsibilities. This is just a necessary reality of life. Of course, if the paralegal or secretary screws up, the lawyer is the one who must take the fall — and so it should be with Congress. Accountability requires nothing less. A representative or senator doesn’t get to publicly blame an aide if he screws up on a vote because the aide advised him poorly. The member has to take responsibility. That’s the only way to ensure that members of Congress only trust people who’ve earned that trust. Thus the chain of accountability remains intact and functional.
CAVEAT: I actually have more sympathy for the “read the bill” argument than this post might suggest. As I said, the above is what I would say “if I were going to mount an defense of the practice” of voting without reading. So am I, in fact, mounting such a defense? Well, sort of. I think my argument, though rooted entirely in pragmatism rather than idealism, is generally correct. But I’m still somewhat uncomfortable with it, because I’m an idealist at heart, and thus I’m certainly open to persuasion by anyone who can acknowledge the real-world difficulties of the “read the bill” position, but can then proceed to convincingly argue why it is nevertheless correct. Any takers?
One way to help would be to stop attaching random, un-related provissions, riders, etc. to bills. If the bill is about, say, energy policy, it should not include stuff for say, ballet or basketball funding.
Now that, I agree with. 🙂
I don’t remember Reynolds & co. shouting “READ THE BILL!!!” when it was Republicans in charge. Which, I hasten to add, is not actually a defense of the practice of voting for legislation without reading it. It’s merely an attack on the credibility of many of the practice’s current critics.
Hmm, and what of the practice’s former critics…
Heh. Touche. But, well, not really, because I expect blatant hypocrisy from politicians, Republican or Democrat, especially when it comes to procedural issues like this. (Another example would be whether the “reconciliation” process is evil, whether the filibuster is undemocratic, etc.) I hold the commentariat, Left and Right, to a higher standard of intellectual honesty. It would be nice to see someone like Glenn actually stand on principle, instead of partisanship. It would be nice to see Obama/Pelosi/Reid/Boehner/McConnell/whomever do so, too, but let’s be honest: those people are political creatures. Expecting them to rise above politics is like expecting a pig to rise above shit. 🙂
(And yes, I realize that’s not really a proper analogy, since pigs are not literally “shit creatures,” but it was fun to write anyway.)
*Note: I didn’t actually watch the clip you linked to. I am willing to presume, though, that it shows Obama saying it’s important to read the bill, not rush things, etc. I have no trouble believing that he said any of that, indeed I assume he did.
It’s an audio clip of Obama being interviewed in 2004 by Randi Rhodes on Air America, who readily agreed with his criticism about the Patriot Act, budgets, etc. not being read and debated before being voted on by Congress during the Bush administration. It’s fair to assume that many others in the left wing commentariat shared her views back then. But I agree that it would be nice to see someone like Glenn stand on principle instead of partisanship — I hold Instapundit to a higher standard of intellectual honesty than Randi Rhodes.
Obama also criticizes the Bush administration for intimidating Congress by rushing bills through. It’s worth listening to the entire clip because it splices in comments made last March by Chuck Todd of MSNBC describing Rahm Emanuel’s rationale for rushing legislation through congress:
I’m actually under the impression that currently no congressional office (that includes staffers) reads the entirety of bills anymore. There was a piece on NPR a year or two back where they referenced some member of congress who made sure that each bill was completely read over, and he has since retired. They said the closest office is John McCain’s. I can’t find the piece after a quick google search, and unfortunately I’m pretty busy with work right now or else I’d put more effort into searching for it. But perhaps that will jog someone’s memory or someone will confirm or deny that that is true in general.
I’m in total agreement on the whole one-subject bill thing, and in fact if I could think of a way to practically implement that I’d run solely on that platform. I think if bills were limited to a single subject the world would be a better place. Unfortunately that’s pretty difficult to implement.
“… I’m certainly open to persuasion by anyone who can acknowledge the real-world difficulties of the ‘read the bill’ position, but can then proceed to convincingly argue why it is nevertheless correct. Any takers?”
None so far, apparently. :}
“Legislation is written by lawyers, for lawyers. It’s extremely technical, and often quite difficult to understand. (Trust me on this. I’ve read statutes.)”
Written for lawyers, Yes – especially for those among you who are, or will become, Judges. Written by lawyers: not Always. (Trust me on this. I’ve Written statutes. 🙂 (I always took particular pride in making sure they were extremely technical & often quite difficult to understand. / This is why I was sometimes mistaken for a Lawyer. 🙂
“Even after reading every word of a 1,000-page bill, your average senator or representative is still going to need to find a more knowledgeable person and ask them, ‘So, what the Hell does all that mean?’ In which case, what’s the point?”
Exactly right.
“(Why, you ask, are bills lengthy ‘of necessity’? Because legislation is complicated! And if you keep bills short, in spite of the complexity of the subject matter, you open the door for, gasp, activist judges to define the law’s true meaning through creative ‘interpretation’ of barely-fleshed-out language.)…”
“…And, as I said, legislation needs to be detailed, and thus lengthy, lest judges and executive department officials become de facto legislators, even more than they already are…”
Bingo. Again. 🙂 During my State-government career (as well as long Before and doubtless continuing forever After it) some **Politicoes would periodically propose the Plain-Languaging of the Election Laws. Shudder. ;> Fortunately we were always able to Stave off such Catastrophe. 🙂 Elections administrators (at all levels) get Sued by Sore losers quite enough as it is, thank you very much. Simplify, Shorten & Sweeten the statutes and we might might as well just move the Office into the courthouse for The Duration.
(**See, many elected Politicoes think they are experts on Elections because – concededly – they know a lot about Politics. They actually believe the two are One & the Same! This is like the professional practitioner of the Profane claiming his Experience as qualification to expound upon the Sacred. 🙂
And, I’ll Grudgingly grant that doubtless there are legislative subjects (e.g., comprehensive national healthcare insurance reform) even more technical, complex, Voluminous & difficult than state election law. 🙂 Well. A few, anyway. :>
“…I confess I am not intimately familiar with the inner workings of congressional offices, and if nobody is reading these bills, I’ll admit that’s a different matter. But presumably aides are reading them…”
Well, as a minimalist Baseline we can have confidence that the congressional employees who Write them (as full Drafts) are Reading them as they Go along. Probably staff Lawyers (and perhaps some Lay people too, let us Hope 🙂 for the various Committees of Cognizance and so forth. / Then in the Committee “Mark-up” process a whole lot of Reading, and Re-reading, surely has got to get done. And somebody’s gotta do the final Proofreading, too.
“… pigs are not literally ‘shit creatures,’…”
Not literally, no. However, they are Treif. Even with Lipstick on. / But you’ll excuse me now, I’m gettin’ the hechser outta here. ;}
How many smilies, random asides and formatting peculiarities are in the statutes authored by Joe Loy? I wonder…
Several, Scientizzle. / The Courts still haven’t figured out quite what to Make of them. Thus far, by mentioning them only in Dicta, they Punt. 🙂