News not getting enough attention
By Smith2028
@Smith2028 (797)
United States
July 29, 2008 6:21pm CST
A study released on June 10 by the government’s Congressional Research Service (CRS), indicates that 855 of the 911 bills passed by the Senate of the 110th Congress have been streamlined by Democratic Party leadership with a procedural tactic known as Unanimous Consent (UC), which requires no debate or even a vote.
That is 94% of bills that weren't voted on, that didn't have any sort of debate, and probably also weren't read.
I find this completely reprehensible. For a Congress to pass that many bills without a vote shows how little they actually care.
1 person likes this
2 responses
@Vladilyich1 (1454)
• Canada
29 Jul 08
I belong to a bipartisan group called "Downsize D.C." They are pushing for a "Read the Bills Act" which would require every Congress Critter to actually read everything that goes through their particular house.
@Gorcon (320)
• United States
30 Jul 08
Hasn't this always occurred in Congress? I thought that's how alot of pork-barreling and earmarking amendments and what not were passed because the Congress wants to pass a bill so fast that they put in anything they want and it gets passed.
@Smith2028 (797)
• United States
30 Jul 08
There are always UC bills, but not at this extreme percentage.
1 person likes this
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
30 Jul 08
This is upsetting but as I said, I'm interested in how this Congress compares with those in the past. I think it's ridiculous how all of the bills brought before Congress are thousands of pages long. I don't know how any of them could possible read them all even if they DID want to! I understand some bills can be rather far-reaching and complicated but even so, thousands of pages? I think something should be done about that if possible. A good place to start would be to stop putting tings in a bill that has absolutely nothing to do with the original bill. I've never been able to figure out the reason for doing that and all I can think of is it's done so it can be used against someone at a later date as in saying Senator X voted for or against something when it was only something stuck in with something else that was completely unrelated.
Annie
