Is it OK for Congress to vote on bills based on summaries or bullet points?

[mjr]

So, question in the title.

I don't believe it is.

It would be like if I gave the bullet points for the movie Star Wars:

• It happened in space
• Obi-Wan trained luke
• Luke blew up the Death Star

And then I asked you if it were any good or not.

I know that sometimes specific amendments get voted on, but I think the same thing happens with those.

Here's a good example. The ACA. It was over 2,000 pages, if I recall correctly. And also, from what I understand, nobody actually read it. I've yet to hear anyone who voted on it (either "yes" or "no") state that they read the entire thing. I'll do something I rarely do, and give Pelosi benefit of the doubt, but she did say, "We have to vote on it so we can see what's in it.", or something along those lines.

But it's not just the ACA. There were bills under GWB that I'm quite sure nobody read.

Because they're all getting summaries and bullet points.

I've heard the argument "They can't be expected to read the whole thing".

I disagree with that sentiment, and I think it leads to irresponsible legislating. If you can't read the whole thing, either set a timeframe to allow for the entire thing to be read, don't vote on it, or don't make the bill so damn long.

[Kheldarson]

So...you read everything you sign, right? All the websites' TOC's, the entirety of your mortgage agreement, all the info your credit card sends you?

I'm guessing probably not.

Major difference between us and a Congress person? They pay people to read and comprehend and summarize the bills. And those folk tend to become institutes unto themselves within the Congessional office.

Should it be that way? Probably not. But given the amount of info that can pass through any Congressional office, human nature is what it is.

Besides, if we made it a requirement, do you think it would change anything?

[s_stabeler]

So...you read everything you sign, right? All the websites' TOC's, the entirety of your mortgage agreement, all the info your credit card sends you?

I might be unusual in this regard, but yes I do.

and actually, I agree with mjr. Considering that slipping things into unrelated bills is almost a national sport in Congress, then it IS actually important that bills are scrutinized line-by-line.

and would it change anythign? maybe, maybe not, but it at least means that arguments might actually be on the bill itself says, not what people *think* the bill says.

[HYHYBT]

Putting all the bills they go through together is simply too much for *anyone* to read, and much of it out of their area of expertise isn't going to be all that useful to go through anyway. A more detailed summary than your Star Wars example plus having staffers go through looking for red flags is the best it's reasonable to expect.

And no, making the bills short enough that everyone can read through all of them is not even remotely reasonable either given how much they cover.

[mjr]

So...you read everything you sign, right? All the websites' TOC's, the entirety of your mortgage agreement, all the info your credit card sends you?

I'm guessing probably not.

This is a reasonable point to make. However, I would counter with this:

Me not reading a TOC or other documents only affects a few people (i.e. me and possibly my immediate family).

Not reading a bill by someone who is paid and was voted into office to legislate, is a different situation to me.

Besides, if we made it a requirement, do you think it would change anything?

I really don't know. I'd like to think it would.

[TheHuckster]

I think all bills should be written in a haiku.

The people are sick
We need solutions that stick
Cheap healthcare is great

I agree that one should absolutely know what a bill covers before voting on it. However, I understand that bills, especially ones like the ACA, need to be spelled out in very lengthy terms to convey their meaning. I do have a problem with congresspeople stating that they both agree/disagree with the bill AND don't understand it entirely at the same time. Even if they have staffers who read through the fine print, eventually that information has to bubble up to the person making the decision to vote yea or nay, or else there's no point in any of that work.

So...you read everything you sign, right? All the websites' TOC's, the entirety of your mortgage agreement, all the info your credit card sends you?

Website TOC's? Not entirely. If it's something like an MMORPG I will definitely read the basic rules, though. Other than that, the risk of being sued to oblivion due to some weird technicality is negligible, and the most likely case that will happen is I get banned from the site. Whoopdy-doo. Mortgage agreement? You bet I do. I'm signing off on what I'm going to be paying for a roof over my head on a month-to-month basis for the next 30 years with hundreds of thousands of dollars in collateral. You'd have to be crazy to think you should just gloss that over. Credit card agreements? Yes, absolutely. Especially those 0% APR deals they give you for the first 12 months. Typically they come with strings attached such as if you don't pay off your balance in that period of time, they'll retroactively apply penalties and interest rates. I saved hundreds of dollars reading that fine print.

And, as mjr says, when a bill comes up like the ACA that affects every single American citizen's access to health and comes with billions of dollars in government costs, you bet your ass I want people to read the bill carefully and make sure it actually does what it says on the tin. I live in a blue state, and I pay about $6,500 a year for a "silver" policy that has a $5,000 deductible, and even after that deductible is met, I still have to pay 10% of many procedures and hospital charges, meaning if something really bad happens to me in January that comes out to, say, $55,000 then, in addition to my yearly premiums, I have to pay an additional $5,000 plus an additional $5,000 after that. Affordable? Hell, no. And, because I read my mortgage agreement so carefully, I'll know what happens to my house after such an event occurs.

[Hyena Dandy]

And, as mjr says, when a bill comes up like the ACA that affects every single American citizen's access to health and comes with billions of dollars in government costs, you bet your ass I want people to read the bill carefully and make sure it actually does what it says on the tin.

That's a good idea. However, there's a problem with that, and that's that at the rate the changes are coming to something like the ACA, people often CAN'T do that. That's what "We need to pass it to see what's in it" meant. No-one had the time to read the ACA, because if they did, they wouldn't have time to catch up.

When that was said, the situation was basically that you have two huge, controversial bills. One in Senate, one in House. Both of them so BIG that it takes a couple days to get throughthem. Days during which further amendments are being added. As ridiculous as the "We need to pass it to know what's in it" sounds, that's really the case. You can't know what's in it, until it stops changing long enough to read it, and until you agree which parts you're keeping and which you're changing.

[TheHuckster]

Well, as far as I'm concerned, that's an epic failure in the democratic/republic system, and should be considered unacceptable.

[Hyena Dandy]

I actually READ the ACA. It took me a week and a half, and all I had to worry about at the time was highschool work. Hard as it may be, it's nothing compared to country-running. Getting someone to read and summarize is the best way to handle larger bills.

Additionally, for the most part, they did know what was in the final product they passed. The summaries are quite large. What they were saying 'We need to pass it to know what's in it' is part of the fact that, the bill that would be passed that time wouldn't be the final bill. It would need to be matched up to house and senate. The bill was not enacted into law by people who didn't have any clue what was in it. It was sent to reconciliaton by people who were probably busy following their own house's version, and didn't have time to keep up with all the changes to the other one.

Edit: Struck the first line, it was too sarcastic.

[Estil]

Indeed, they are sometimes called lawmakers so not surprisingly the vast majority of Representatives and Senators come from legal sorts of professions or at least have some degree of background/training in law (and those who do not I would think would be at a HUGE disadvantage) so I really don't think it's asking too much for them to read bills and such real good before deciding yea or nay (especially the major stuff). Not to mention how embarrassing it'd be if let's say they have a reputation of being an especially strong supporter for one side of an issue, and because they didn't read the bill well, they accidentally also inadvertently end up voting for the other side of their pet issue!!