As a follow up to David Post’s post below, I have some practical questions for those who think that legislators should “never vote on any bill unless they have read every word of it.”
1. Would you also require the legislator to understand the bill? Or is mere reading, with no comprehension, enough? And if comprehension is required, how much comprehension is required, and how would you test that?
2. Imagine a particular bill is a long list of amendments to prior sections of the U.S. Code — perhaps hundreds of pages of amendments such as, “Insert ‘and affects’ after ‘channels’ in 5 U.S.C. 1040(a)(7)(C).” Would you also require the legislator to read the law that is being amended?
3. Imagine that a legislator has promised to vote against legislation of that general type — for example, he has promised to vote against all tax increases, and the bill includes a tax increase. Does he still have to read every word of the bill even though he has promised to vote against it?
4. Imagine a bill is up for a vote, and the bill is overwhelmingly popular: No one opposes it. It is also hundreds of pages long. Should the legislator have to read every word anyway? Or is there some threshold of controversy or importance that needs to be crossed before the reading requirement is triggered?
5. Does the reading requirement apply to procedural votes, like cloture, or is it only on the passage of the legislation itself?
UPDATE: Here’s a bonus question:
6. Imagine Congress wants to dramatically limit the role of the federal government in American life, and there are bills up for a vote that do just that. The bills are very long, however, as they need to amend many laws, remove old parts, and introduce new parts that dramatically cut back on the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy. Do legislators need to read every word of those bills, too?