downsizedc.org — Congressmen should know what “fiduciary responsibility” is, and for them, it should mean reading every word of every law they sign. There's a basic principle at stake here. America was founded on the slogan, “No taxation without representation.” A similar slogan applies to this situation: “No LEGISLATION without representation.”
Sep 26, 2006 View in Crawl 4
ricreeSep 27, 2006
I'm all for requiring legislators to read the bills they are voting on, but I'm not sure how great a solution reading the bills out loud will be. Take the patriot act, as an example. If you sat through 500 pages of legal text being read out loud, how much of it would you honestly retain.
khafraSep 27, 2006
7 days. It's called the "Read The Bills Act"
flossdailySep 27, 2006
What would prevent a rogue representative from proposing a 900,000 page bill and grinding congress to a halt? It would be a visual filabuster.
joybranSep 27, 2006
@ VijchtiDoodah"They do NOT vote based on the title. Congressmen and congresswomen don't have the time to read every single law that's going to be passed -- if they even attempted to do so, they would be so bogged down with the littlest things that nothing would ever be accomplished."That's the whole point. If they had to read every law they impose on the rest of us, they couldn't possibly impose so many ridiculous laws. We would all be better off if they didn't ACCOMPLISH so much when what they ACCOMPLISH is to run every tiny little aspect of our lives. Some of us prefer to run our own lives.
ftljohnsonSep 28, 2006Submitter
I believe there are plenty of provisions to toss bills out and disgree before finishing reading them... but I agree... do we really need news laws all the time? When is the last time we really needed a NEW law becuase the ones we had were not goo enough? Seems to me that every new law that has been introduce recently has just caused problems... I believe part of the genius of this is to keeps laws WELL WRITTEN, short and succinct, so that each and every law will be passed a peice at a time.. not with these sweeping piles of garbage that we have now that pass hundreds of different laws and regulations at once when one bill gets passed.
bitbrainSep 28, 2006
You don't vote for a staff...you vote for a person. Having a staff member read a section of what a politician votes on just gives that politician another scapegoat, i.e. "Well, I never read that...must have been a staff member's oversight...".
testcaseSep 29, 2006
What's to stop someone from putting forward a 900,000 page bill now and getting it passed into law with NO ONE reading it?
robertpete80Sep 29, 2006
DownsizeDC.org-see what congress/ our President is up to, and join a free group of people that still believe we have freedoms. The corruption is rediculous and We The People must do something to stop the lack of real representation, effect changes, and put our country back in order.
freedomcauseOct 1, 2006
Sir (I'm assuming), what you say here is pertinent. DownsizeDC.org is a group made up of people who still believe we have the freedoms handed down to us by our forebears and guaranteed to us in writing in our national Constitution. Protection of those freedoms (and rights), however, requires constant, consistent and unwavering vigilance on our part along with a willingness to do something about a potentially destructive issue such as government employee corruption. (Point of clarity, I consider anyone, whether hired, appointed or elected to any position within any government to be an employee, from clerks to the President. They are, after all, working for us, the American people, you and me and through our taxes they are paid.) It has been my unfortunate experience to witness the slow, steady and disheartening increase in apparent corruption among our government employees right alongside the decline in will among the American people to do anything about it. I agree the corruption is ridiculous but there are too few of us who are willing to pay the price to express that ridicule and make it known that corruption on the part of our government employees cannot be tolerated.Many who read these posts may feel as though there just is nothing that can be done about corruption among government employees and will throw up their collective hands in resignation to the old saw "You can't fight city hall". To them, and to you, may I suggest there might be a way for us to regain our lost liberties and reaffirm, reinforce and reinstate our Constitutionally guaranteed rights. It seems to me that the best way to reform "the system" is within that very same system, that is through politics. Specifically, my suggestion is to rally behind a political party that is an alternative to the establishment parties, Rs & Ds. My personal choice is the Libertarian Party because, in part, of people like Representative Ron Paul from Texas. Though a registered Republican, his words and actions are libertarian in nature and he has consistently voiced opposition to the Federal Reserve system of fractional reserve banking, fascistic legislation such as the grossly misnamed "USA PATRIOT ACT" and federal government bureaucracies, IRS included. I think representation by Libertarians would go a long way toward the long overdue restoration of our rights.If you are interested, see what you can learn about the current bid for House of Representatives by a registered Libertarian by the name of Bob Smither. He is running against only a Democrat in a district in Texas (which borders Mr. Paul's district) that was formerly held by Mr. Tom DeLay. Mr. DeLay was forced out of the race because this government employee (Mr. DeLay) apparently got too blatant with, or too unmindful of, his corruption. Volume 35, Issue 8, September 2006 of the L P News has an article about Bob Smither.
robertpete80Oct 1, 2006
FREEDOMCAUSE, thank you for the info. I agree with all you had to say as well. Rs & Ds no longer differ, and our government is "out of control" in my opinion. I have no intention of giving up my rights, yet as you pointed out too many are mis-inforrmed/un-informed/don't care, and so our government only continues to worsen. I have seen some of the Libertarian signs etc. and plan on voting for them in upcoming elections in UT. Unlike many, I have not given up and I believe your idea to Change our representation is the most positive way to start a "solution". Trick is, how could we possibly market such radical ideas as reading legislation, NOT banning guns, personal responsibility, etc.? Suggestions welcome, may Freedom ring !