Here’s How We Can Force Congress To Read The Bills They Vote On…
How to deal with this reality, which has been many years in the making, is a difficult challenge.
ALEXANDRIA, VA — In mid-January, Congress rushed
through a massive spending bill of 1,582 pages; the accompanying
explanatory statements added another 1,278 pages. It was voted on only
44 hours after it was posted, giving members of Congress less than a
minute to read each page — if they gave up a night’s sleep.
When asked whether he read this $1.1 trillion bill, Rep. Earl
Blumenauer (D-OR) was honest. He responded, “Nobody did.” This bill will
fund the federal government for the rest of fiscal year 2014, which
ends September 30, 2014. The bill increases federal spending by $44.8
billion this year over the spending level previously set by Congress.
How many members of Congress know that this bill gives the oil and
nuclear industries $154 million more than the Energy Department
requested for nuclear energy, and $141 million more than requested for
fossil-fuel development? How many are aware that the bill skirts a ban
on earmarks by providing more than $44 million for the Army Corps of
Engineers that the administration had not requested — or that the
Pentagon was given $666 million to study illnesses such as breast cancer
that have little to do with matters of national defense? The list of
what members of Congress do not know is in the bill is a long one.
None of this is new. In 2010, Congress passed, and President Obama
signed, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
At 2,319 pages, it is significantly longer than previous financial
reform laws and approaches the extraordinary length of the Affordable
Care Act. By comparison, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which
established the Federal Reserve banking system and the single national
currency, was 31 pages long. The Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933,
which overhauled the entire banking system in light of hundreds of bank
failures, was 37 pages long.
The complexity in legislation has created an industry of lobbyists
and consultants — often former members of Congress and former
congressional staff members — to help individuals and businesses to cope
with what has been imposed upon them. University of London economist
Anthony G. Heyes notes, “It is precisely the complex, opacity, and
user-unfriendliness which underpin the value of their expertise” that
translate into “selling advice to those they previously regulated.”
Peter Schweitzer, president of the Government Accountability
Institute and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, tells the story
of Amy Friend, a chief aide to Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) in crafting
the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill and former chief counsel to the
Senate Banking Committee. “After the bill passed,” he writes, “and
became law, she left Capitol Hill and became managing director at
Promontory Financial Group, which describes itself as ‘a premier global
financial consulting firm.’ This Washington-based consulting firm is
headed up by many people like Friend — people who were once responsible
for erecting or interpreting arcane financial regulations in public
service and then joined the group, where they can charge high fees to
help firms interpret and comply with these befuddling regulations….
Banks complain about Promontory’s high fees, which can run up to $1,500
an hour. Eugene Ludwig, the former comptroller of the currency under
Bill Clinton, reportedly makes $30 million a year running Promontory.”
Or consider Daniel Meade, who was chief counsel to the Financial
Services Committee under Chairman Barney Frank (the “Frank” of
Dodd-Frank). Meade left Capitol Hill for Hogan-Lovells, an established
lobbying firm. When Meade arrived, the firm announced that Meade was “a
principal drafts person of substantial portions of the Dodd-Frank Wall
Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.” The firm explained that
Meade would be “representing financial services entities and other
entities impacted by the regulation of those entities in connection with
a broad range of regulatory and transactional matters, including issues
related to the Dodd-Frank Act.”
John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell Oil, saw the process
at work: “They deliberately write ambiguity into the law. It’s part of a
career-building process. If you are a congressional staffer, you spend
your career crafting complex legislative language. This equips you to
leverage your post-government competence. The whole system builds on
itself.”
“For congressional staffers… it’s a huge payday,” writes Peter
Schweitzer. “Sen. Ron Johnson was first elected to the U.S. Senate in
2010 from Wisconsin. A businessman and entrepreneur, he has hired plenty
of people over the years. When it came to hiring congressional staffers
for his new job, he was struck by a phrase some applicants used during
the interview process: ‘cashing in.’ ‘I had never heard that term before
when hiring someone in the private sector,’ Johnson says. Time spent
working at a lobbying firm or at a consultancy is ‘cashing in.’ Some
people work on Wall Street until they have enough money to ‘cash out.’
In Washington, they set themselves up for those jobs in order to cash
in.”
Alan Siegel, who for many years has advocated greater simplicity in
communications and was called “Mr. Plain English” by PEOPLE magazine,
says, “Complexity robs us of time, patience, understanding, money and
optimism. The U.S. was founded and governed for over two centuries on
the basis of a document that is six pages long. That is 0.1 per cent of
the current income tax code, which currently runs a whopping 14,000
pages.” Even IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman admitted on C-SPAN that he
cannot do his own personal tax return anymore because “it’s just too
complicated.”
Prof. Anthony Heyes believes, “[P]eople working in regulatory
agencies have too little incentive to make or keep procedures and
practices simple, transparent, and user-friendly.” He argues that
one-third of the costs of regulations are “transaction costs”– that is,
“paying someone to help you jump through the ‘hoops and hurdles’ of the
regulatory process.”
One way to simplify legislation and increase the possibility that
members of Congress will read — and understand — the legislation on
which they vote is to adopt a single-subject rule for all bills. Article
III of the Florida Constitution, for example, “requires that every law
shall embrace but one subject and matter properly connected there with.”
It would be good, of course, to require members of Congress to actually
read the bills they are going to vote on. Bills have been introduced
that would require a seven-day waiting period between the time when a
bill is ready for a vote and when the final vote actually takes place.
Others suggest that all bills scheduled for a full vote on the floor be
read out loud. There has even been a suggestion that all members be
required to read the bills before voting — and to sign a legal affidavit
attesting to that fact.
Such proposals may be fanciful considering the reality of today’s
Congress. That we live in a society in which our legislators pass
1,000-bills they have not read and do not understand is beyond question.
How to deal with this reality, which has been many years in the making,
is a difficult challenge. It is one we would do well to confront.
Allan C. Brownfeld is the author of five books, the latest of
which is THE REVOLUTION LOBBY (Council for Inter-American Security). He
has been a staff aide to a U.S. Vice President, Members of Congress, and
the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.
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