To Get Respect, Congress Must Earn Respect
Yesterday's Boston Globe offered a classic and well-told story of how things work in Washington these days. I'll just let Susan Milligan's great lead sentence say it all: "Nearly all members of the House of Representatives opted out of a chance to read this year's classified intelligence bill, and then voted on secret provisions they knew almost nothing about.
"The bill, which passed 327 to 96 in April, authorized the Bush Administration's plans for fighting the war on terrorism. Many members say they faced an untenable choice: Either consent to a review process so secretive that they could never mention anything about it in House debates, under the threat of prosecution, or vote on classified provisions they knew nothing about. Most chose to know nothing."
Which choice would you make? Would you rather know what you were voting upon or be able to talk about it on the floor of the House? Seems like a no-brainer, right? You check out the provisions so you can make an informed vote even if you don't get the soundbyte you want on C-SPAN. At a time when more, not less, Congressional oversight is needed, it is pathetic, but not surprising, that so many of our elected officials opt for the easy way out. Milligan also reports that many legislators even miss the briefings that White House officials give about these secret programs. And then of course some of these legislators complain that they are out of the loop.
And it's not just classified legislation that gets the bum's rush. The USA Patriot Act, that massive piece of anti-terrorism legislation that was enacted in November 2001 as a response to 9/11, was passed so quickly after its introduction that it would have been physically impossible for any legislators to have read it before they voted on it. I guess the defense to this sort of handiwork is to contend that summaries of the gist of the legislation, offered by Congressional leaders and White House officials-- are enough to allow Congress to make an educated vote. But of course those leaders and officials are the same folks who kept from their colleagues (not to mention the rest of us) the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program.
By Andrew Cohen |
August 7, 2006; 9:00 AM ET
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Posted by: MC | August 7, 2006 11:31 PM
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The members of the current House of Representatives don't read most bills on which they vote. Precluding them from discussing the terms of the bill on the House floor saved them the embarrassment of not being able to discuss the bills intelligently.
Has there ever been a Congress that cared less about governing?
The majority take their marching orders from the likes of Abramoff and the minority alternated between giving up and feeding the Republicans enough rope to hang themselves.
We will find out in Nov. how many political necks snapped.