Read the Bills, Write the Laws
It's no secret that Washington is broken. We must reject our legislators' fondness for voting on bills based upon catchy titles and vapid summaries. As our current Rep. David Price reveals, there is a difference between reading legislation and "considering" it:
A further example of Congress' madness is its tendency to not even write laws anymore. Instead, Congress passes unread legislation that authorizes unelected bureaucrats and other "interested" yet unaccountable parties to write regulations. What results is the worst of both worlds -- regulations far too complex to implement or understand, laden with conflicts of interest from those who wrote the regulations, and often missing the intent of the original legislation.
Campaign finance reform is one area where Congress' regulatory attempts have backfired spectacularly:
A federal appeals court overturned four campaign regulations Friday that remain incomplete six years after Congress approved a landmark election-law overhaul. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia agreed with a lower court that Federal Election Commission regulations dealing with coordination between campaigns and outside advocates must be rewritten.
The appeals court also agreed with Rep. Christopher Shays , R-Conn., a chief sponsor of the law (PL 107-155), that a regulation dealing with fundraising at state-level events that the District Court upheld should instead be overturned.
Judge David S. Tatel, writing for the three-judge panel, found the regulations either contrary to the law or arbitrary. The court sent the FEC back to the drawing board “in the hope that, as the nation enters the thick of the fourth election cycle since [the law’s] passage, the commission will issue regulations consistent with the act’s text and purpose.”
Here's the funny part, worthy of Heller himself:
But the results are unclear. The flawed regulations will remain in effect until they are rewritten. But the commission has been unable to function this year for lack of a quorum, although nominations to fill the panel are pending in the Senate.
“We’ve just gotten the opinion and are reviewing it, so we don’t really have any comment now,” said Bob Biersack, an FEC spokesman. “It will be up to the commission to decide how to proceed.
North Carolina's 4th District deserves representation that will read the bills before voting. We must not let our elected representatives unconstitutionally delegate their legislative power.
As your Congressman, I will support the Read the Bills Act, and the Write the Laws Act.
- BJ Lawson For Congress's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- 212 reads
with their important jobs to read every piece of legislation that is proposed, much less to perform the administrative function of writing the legislation themselves. There is no way we would have ever made it to 5 million pages of federal law by now if we put your suggestion into place. It's admirable but unrealistic. :)
Tom Mullen
www.tommullen.net
www.myspace.com/skepticsongs
Congress sees as its "job" the process of writing and enacting laws and legislation.
Unfortunately, it takes this part of its job far more seriously than in removing laws and acts of legislation.
The net result are things like the tax code, which requires an expert to decipher.
Someone should reintroduce KISS (keep it simple, stupid) into the federal mindset.
Nice question, btw... "Did you actually read the documents?"
Great video BJ