Moments of Permanence - America's (legislative branch) political problems fixed at a stroke

From: elspethdixon Date: March 3rd, 2012 06:20 am (UTC) (Link)

a hard and fast rule that any amendment to legislation must pertain directly to the legislation in question.

While on the one hand that would be awesome and get rid of pork fat spending in one fell swoop ("pork fat" is, for some reason I should remember from high school government classes but can't, the name given to random amendments tacked on to the ends of bills like that, especially if those amendments involve federal $$ being spent in some guy on a committee's congressional district), that tactic is often used by both parties to bribe key people into voting for the original bill and thus get it passed (vote for this very necessary bill about Important Thing so that we have enough votes for it to pass, and we'll add on an amendment about some random thing you want) as well as (like was done with the Blund amendment) getting legislation passed that they know wouldn't make it otherwise by tacking it on to the end of something innocuous and hoping no one notices.

It's too convenient for lawmakers for them to ever willingly give it up, despite the fact that people have been complaining about the need to get rid of it for at least a century.

My suggestion is that no senator or congressman be permitted to vote on a bill without reading the entire text of the bill from beginning to end. Aloud. As in "I, Congressman blahblah from [state], vote yes to the bill that reads as follows [blahblahblah]."

Watch how concise and to-the-point legislation would suddenly become.

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