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Downsize DC

Nice idea -- from the DownsizeDC website:

Help us pass the “Read the Bills Act” (RTBA)
You can read the text of RTBA by clicking the Draft Legislation tab above, or you can start by reading a summary of the legislation below. Following that summary is a description of our strategy for passing RTBA, and then a call to action.

Part 1: What RTBA does and why:
Most Congressmen are lawyers, and many others are businessmen. They know what “fiduciary responsibility” is. For Members of Congress, fiduciary responsibility means reading each word of every bill before they vote.

But Congress has not met this duty for a long time. Instead...

• They carelessly pass mammoth bills that none of them have read. Sometimes printed copies aren't even available when they vote!


• Often no one knows what these bills contain, or what they really do, or what they will really cost.


• Additions and deletions are made at the last minute, in secrecy.


• They combine unpopular proposals with popular measures that few in Congress want to oppose. (This practice is called “log-rolling.”)


• And votes are held with little debate or public notice.


• Oh, and once these bills are passed, and one of these unpopular proposals comes to light, they pretend to be shocked. “How did that get in there?” they say.

There's a basic principle at stake here. America was founded on the slogan, “No taxation without representation.” A similar slogan applies to this situation:

“No LEGISLATION without representation.”

Interesting idea -- rabbit's chance in hell that it will actually pass in an effective form but it would be nice... I have run into a lot of cases where someone asks their congresscritter about something and they get a form letter back saying that the politician in question "will look into it". Posted by DaveH at April 6, 2007 8:23 PM