How reasonable is the "Read the Bill" movement?

The "Read the Bill" movement — requiring legislators to fully read and understand a bill's language before voting on it — sounds reasonable. But the Washington Post wonders if it's even possible:

Politicians are asked to make all sorts of unwise promises. The latest: A group of well-meaning professional activists -- and, so far, over nearly 60,000 online petitioners -- want members of Congress to sign a pledge never to vote on any bill unless they have read "every word" of it.

They have a point. But their proposal would bring government to a standstill.

The editorial warns that requiring Congressmen to read "every word" would effectively bring Congress to a halt. As if that would be a bad thing.

Perhaps one of the points of the "Read the Bill" movement is to show that if Congressmen claim not to even have time to read the bills they vote on, Congress is doing too much.

Regardless, there are other options available. "Read the Bill" provisions could be enacted on bills that exceed a page or dollar limit. When Congress is planning on spending a significant amounts of money or giving legislators a chance to hide earmarks reading the bill is most necessary.

Or what if Congress stopped trying to run and regulate everything and reduced bills to a more manageable length?

The future of journalism is here

If you haven't done it already, I definitely urge you to check out the live-blog of the IFC tax study meeting by my NPRI colleagues Geoff and Victor.

As fellow blogger Mike C. did with his piece on a health care reform forum, we are witnessing the future of journalism.

With the diminished influence of the traditional media, the distributed efforts of various twitter streams, facebook accounts and blog posts are the future of government accountability. It is a beautiful thing.

White House to open up visitor logs

In a welcome reversal of previous policy, the White House has decided to release its visitor logs:

Until now, Obama had followed the Bush policy of keeping visitor logs secret. News organizations and watchdog groups had sought to make the records public to show who was influencing administration policy on health care, financial rules and other issues.

The new policy would begin in mid-September. Electronic visitor logs maintained by the Secret Service would be released three to four months after visits are made. The disclosure would include who set up the meeting, where it was held and for how long. Specific requests for visits before Sept. 15 would be dealt with individually.

While this administration has disappointed time and again on the issue of transparency, this is one step in the right direction. Knowledge of who is visiting the White House is paramount to understanding how policy is shaped.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington released a statement applauding the move which settles their previous lawsuit about the visitor logs.

Let's hope this is the first of many steps the Obama administration takes to make the White House more transparent.

The city that pork built

Most scandals involve a person — Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, William Jefferson — but The New Republic has an excellent piece about a scandal that could bring down an entire city.

For decades, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) has used his position on the House Appropriations Committee to "bring home the bacon" to his Johnstown constituents who obligingly return him back to Congress:

Unlike other Rust Belt cities, however, Johnstown was not completely decimated by the steel industry’s collapse. From his perch on the House Appropriations Committee, Murtha had, over the years, directed $2 billion in federal spending to his district. Kuchera, who, following prison, had moved back to Johnstown and reinvented himself as an entrepreneur specializing in electronics and defense contracting, was just one of the local businessmen who had benefited from this largesse. “I’m certainly a Republican . . . and I don’t think Mr. Murtha and I would agree on everything,” Mark Pasquerilla, a Johnstown businessman who attended the fundraiser, later told me. But “on an economic-development level, he delivers.” In steel’s place, Murtha had become Johnstown’s economic engine, keeping it afloat with a steady stream of government cash that flowed to the city’s private businesses, its hospitals, even its airport--which, like so many things in Johnstown, now bore his name. Murtha was not just Johnstown’s congressman; he was its savior.

John Murtha is a prime example of how lawmakers use the public trough for private gain.