Reading is Fundamental

Here's a piece of legislation worth calling your congressional representative about.

Pending in the House of Representatives, H. Res. 688 would amend the Rules of the House of Representatives to require that legislation and conference reports be available on the Internet for 72 hours before consideration by the House.

How many times have we heard that a significant piece of legislation, such as the so-called "Patriot Act" was adopted by a significant majority of voting representatives, even though the Act was hundreds of pages long, printed the evening before and handed out minutes before the vote? The Rule amendment proposed by Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wa), together with 34 co-sponsors would give everyone an opportunity to actually read the laws before they approve them.

Perhaps of greater import. The proposed amendment would give all Americans ready access, via the internet, to all proposed legislation 72 hours before it is voted on - and that gives each of us the opportunity to contact our representatives and make our points of view known before they vote.

Hopefully, this is something sensible that everyone, republican and democrat, conservative and liberal, can support.

Read more about it. You can find the text of the bill at the link in my second paragraph. Or you can find out whether your congressional rep. is a co-sponsor or help support passage of the bill at ReadtheBill.org.