Legislators want more time to read bills

By Jeff Kosseff
Newhouse News Service

Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver: "Eyes exhausted"

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WASHINGTON — There's a dirty secret on Capitol Hill: Legislators usually vote on bills that could radically change constituents' lives without reading them.

In part, this reflects the complexity of legislation. But it also shows the increasing distance between legislators and the mundane but important work of drafting laws.

Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver, is trying to reverse that trend by pressing the House Rules Committee to require at least three days between the release of a bill and a vote on it, unless two-thirds of House members vote to override the requirement.

Buried inside hundreds of pages are clauses written by lobbyists and congressional staff members that could have dramatic policy effects. The elected representatives rarely see them.

"There is great truth to the fact that most people probably go by talking points: by the advice of staff, which is based on talking points; by the recommendations of their party leadership; and by input from lobbyists," Baird said. "But some of us take this matter very seriously."

The issue was highlighted last weekend, when the House approved a $388 billion "omnibus" spending bill providing money for 13 Cabinet departments hours after members received it. Baird lugged the 1,600 double-sided pages onto the House floor to emphasize the problem.

Many in the House and Senate then expressed outrage over a provision that allows the chairmen of the Appropriations committees and their "agents" to examine citizens' tax returns.

The Senate, where the provision was discovered, voted to repeal it before passing the overall bill. Most House members complained they were unaware of the clause when they voted and vowed to strike it, but Democrats blocked a vote until Dec. 6 as a protest against having so little time to digest the spending bill's 3,646 pages and accompanying documents.

Eight members — five from the House and three from the Senate — suspended quorum rules yesterday and passed stopgap legislation that would pay for the government until then.
 
In "Fahrenheit 9/11," Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., explained to filmmaker Michael Moore that members of Congress typically don't read legislation. Baird said many people have told him they were stunned by that scene.

"I tell them, 'Look, for some of the most important bills we faced, many of us have done our best to read them, but we haven't been given time,' " he said.

The House requires a three-day waiting period, but the Rules Committee can override that obligation if a simple majority of the House agrees. House leaders circumvented the three-day layover 44 times in the past two years, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The House has removed the waiting period for some of the most costly and complex bills, including Saturday's appropriations bill. Representatives last year voted on a 1,213-page defense-authorization bill three hours after receiving it, according to Baird's office. They had eight hours before voting on an 816-page energy bill.

"Most people think members of Congress should read every word, but that's just not remotely possible," said Michael Horowitz, who was general counsel to President Reagan's budget office. "Sure, there ought to be more time. But the real problem is having 15-pound bills, the fact that Congress legislates on every subject, that the reach of government is so extraordinary."

On the House floor in 2003, Baird admitted he didn't completely understand the Medicare bill, which he received less than 24 hours earlier and would be forced to vote on within hours. Baird, who holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, had been plowing through the 680-page bill since 6 a.m.

"My eyes are exhausted," Baird told colleagues hours before the House would vote on the bill. "I must say I do not know fully well enough what is in it."

Only after the Medicare bill passed did Rep. Darlene Hooley, D-Ore., and other members learn the cost was billions of dollars more than originally estimated.

"We were all scrambling to try and find what was in it," Hooley said recently. "Everyone was trying to understand it in a short period of time."

She acknowledged that, even with three days or longer, she wouldn't have time to read every page of lengthy bills. But she said she at least would be able to assign reading to her staff.

Baird has circulated a letter that more than 130 colleagues — nearly all Democrats — have signed in support of his proposal.

Jo Maney, a spokeswoman for Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., Rules Committee chairman, said Dreier would evaluate Baird's plan and other proposed rule changes in the next month.

Horowitz, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, said the issue raised by Baird "only becomes a partisan issue when you're in the minority." Horowitz said he doubts Baird's proposal would make much difference in congressional oversight. And longer waiting periods, he said, would create "feasting time for lobbyists."

The stopgap legislation was reported by the Los Angeles Times.