BrianGarst.com

A Washington Post editorial takes up the issue of legislators reading bills before they are passed.  Noting the pledge hosted by ReadToVote.org, the authors worry that, “their proposal would bring government to a standstill.”

Considering it merely as a practical matter, I don’t mind Congressmen delegating some of that responsibility to staff. But the argument isn’t just that Congressmen didn’t personally read cap-and-trade, for instance, while their staff did; it’s that no one, staff included, could have possibly read it in the time it was amended and passed. Without anyone having time to read it, there is no way it was understood when it was voted on.  That is a gross dereliction of duty.

Yet from an ideological perspective, I support making the Congressmen read it themselves because I want government to be brought to a standstill (using WaPo’s slightly hyperbolic description). Modern day government is clearly lacking in deliberation, and anything that forces them to do more of it, or to write smaller, more comprehensible legislation, is a good thing.