Congressional leaders fight against posting bills online

As Congress lurches closer to a decision on an enormous overhaul of the American health care system, pressure is mounting on legislative leaders to make the final bill available online for citizens to read before a vote.

From the Washington Examiner

I'm not really familiar with the Washington Examiner, so I don't know what it's inherent bias is. However, the article does give examples of both Dem and Rep controlled Congresses passing bills that no one had time to read to see what was in them. For the Rep's it was the Patriot Act and for the Dems it was the stimulus bill.

Is it truly too much to ask for the full bill to be posted online for 72hrs before a vote?

At town hall meetings across the country this past summer, the main topic was health care, but there was a strong undercurrent of anger over the way Congress rushed through passage of the stimulus, global warming and bank bailout bills without seeming to understand the consequences.

Anyone who does not support this 72hr posting rule should be soundly ran out of office on their next election.

The foundation has begun an effort to get Congress to post bills online, for all to see, 72 hours before lawmakers vote on them.

"It would give the public a chance to really digest and understand what is in the bill," Rosenberg said, "and communicate whether that is a good or a bad thing while there is still time to fix it."

Gee, I wonder who might oppose such a reasonable request for the American people to actually have a chance to read these bills.

Remember the last bailout? Remember Obama's 72 hour promise? Nobody in the world could have read through 1100 pages of the final bill in the, what was it, 6-7 hours from the time it was made available to the time it was voted on?

Nearly every Republican has signed on, but the Democratic leadership is unwilling to cede control over when bills are brought to the floor for votes and are discouraging their rank and file from signing the petition. Senate Democrats voted down a similar measure last week for the health care bill.

When they said transparency, what they really meant was that we don't get to see it at all.

Why am I not surprised.

I'm pretty sure that if the Republicans were the majority in CONgress currently, the numbers would be reversed. When you are the opposition/minority party and know you can't push anything through by yourself, you are much more able to vote your conscience.

I hadn't noticed, but it looks like there's already a thread started on it...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Yup, didn't notice it either. Sorry about that.

Where were all these Republicans when the Patriot Act was being rushed through congress? Where were they when the huge corporate cash cow Medicare drug bill was being rushed through?

Are we really suppose to take them seriously now? To actually believe they care what the average American thinks about bills? Are we suppose to believe this really has nothing to do with giving them extra time to spread false rumors on the talking head shows in an attempt to kill any health care bill?

I do believe that giving more time to read bills is important. I simply don't trust the Republicans reasons for pushing for it. After the last eight years, a prostitute using drug selling preacher would have more credibility than the GOP.

reply to post by Kaploink


Actually, the Patriot Act was available. It is also a small bill, which any person of reasonable intelligence should be able to read in an hour.
What false rumors? People were citing chapter and verse from HR 3200, which is why that bill failed.
Are you talking about Rev. Wright?