Sunlight and Simplicity

Much of the anger generated by ObamaCare was a result of the Democrats’ cowardly attempts to sneak it past the voters. The legislation was unnecessarily complex and unnecessarily lengthy. Bad ideas were buried in intentionally mysterious language. Key votes were held at night, on weekends and on Christmas Eve.

Unless Congress is dealing with some national security crisis or natural disaster, is there any excuse for voting at odd hours?

No more attempts to pass bad bills while America sleeps! It’s time to rise up and stop this sort of nonsense.

Here are some suggested reforms for sunlight and simplicity in Congress:

• No late night votes on non-emergent legislation (Vote 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday only).
• No weekend votes on non-emergent legislation.
• No holiday votes on non-emergent legislation.
• No changes in the congressional schedule for non-emergent legislation.
• All congressional activity should be broadcast online on a government website. No closed-door sessions of any kind unless it would be a threat to national security to make a meeting public.
• Every non-emergent bill, in its final form, is to be made public 10 BUSINESS days before any vote can be taken.
• Limit legislation to 250 pages (or some other reasonable number).

The era of stealth legislation needs to come to an abrupt end. In this era of broadband internet access and social media, there are no more excuses for opaque government.

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Music: Reflecting Light

Dr. Coburn's Lethal Injection?

Finally, a GOP Senator with some courage. Senator Tom Coburn is forcing the reading of Bernie Sanders' 800 page single-payer health care amendment. This is huge:

The normal procedure on the Senate floor would have been to dispense with the reading of the amendment. But “to alert taxpayers to this latest Washington scheme to take away your health care decisions,” Senator Coburn’s office writes, Sen. Coburn demanded that the full text of the 767 page Sanders amendment be read by the Senate clerk.

Watch it live.

It took eighteen minutes just to get through the table of contents … for an amendment. Philip [Klein] says the pace picked up a bit afterward, and the entire amendment could be read within about 12 hours. That’s twelve hours of floor time, assuming Coburn keeps withholding unanimous consent.

What does this do? It makes a hash out of Harry Reid’s plan to move the bill through the Senate by Christmas. Twelve hours of floor time for just a single amendment means that no other business can be conducted until at least Friday. Coburn apparently launched this effort in response to an attempt by Reid to shove the bill to a cloture vote without giving everyone enough time to read the bill or peruse the CBO analysis, due this week.

By throwing Senate Democrats off of their very tight schedule, pushing the ObamaCare into 2010, Coburn's move could potentially amount to a lethal injection.

Conservatives, moderates, liberals, the voters & the GOP agree: Kill the Bill! Contact Senator Coburn to thank him doing all of us a huge favor:

Telephone and Fax

Washington D.C.:

Main: 202-224-5754

Fax: 202-224-6008

Tulsa:

Main: 918-581-7651

Fax: 918-581-7195

Oklahoma City:

Main: 405-231-4941

Fax: 405-231-5051

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Twitter

Email

via Memeorandum

Update:

Sanders is withdrawing his amendment with great theatrics (2:45 p.m.).

Now let's read the rest of the legislation.

GOP turns tables on Democrats

This is the kind of clever thinking we need to see more often:

Via CNN...

National Republicans turned the tables on their political counterparts Wednesday by redirecting angry telephone calls coming into their switchboard to the Democratic National Committee.

The DNC released a Web video early in the morning accusing the GOP of inciting mob activity at town hall meetings.

At the end of the video, the DNC instructs people to call the Republican National Committee to express outrage. Callers who dial the RNC's main number to voice their concern about the DNC's charges are told to press 1, which sends them to the DNC's main switchboard.

...

Keep it up, GOP. You just might make a comeback.


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I can never get enough of this. Here's yet another video of a squirming, blushing congressman (a democrat) pinned down by astute constituents:

Via Pundit and Pundette