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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Just in time for consideration for our 2009 end-of-the-year "top ten" lists, Team Obama provides us with another great moment in political ineptitude:

Today's workshop on government openness is closed to the public...

The event Monday for federal employees is a fitting symbol of President Barack Obama's uneven record so far on the Freedom of Information Act, a big part of keeping his campaign promise to make his administration the most transparent ever. As Obama's first year in office ends, the government's actions when the public and press seek information are not yet matching up with the president's words.

Don't worry, there's a good reason for the stunningly ironic hypocrisy:

The closed conference will provide tips for FOIA public liaisons on communicating and negotiating with people who make requests, and introduce the new Office of Government Information Services to them, said Melanie Ann Pustay, director of the Justice Department's Office of Information Policy, which takes the lead on government openness issues.

Pustay said she planned to say the same things at the private workshop that she would say publicly. She offered these reasons to explain why it was closed: She wanted government employees to be able to speak candidly, and the conference would be in an auditorium at the Commerce Department, where she said a government ID was required to be admitted.

The AP and others news organizations routinely enter government buildings to cover the government.

[emphasis added]

Now it makes perfect sense. When coaching bureaucrats on evasive tactics communicating and negotiating with the public, you want to keep the public at a safe distance.

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1,363 Days

Who knows what will come of this, but I have to give credit where credit is due. We should applaud the moderate Democratic Senators who sent a letter to Harry Reid urging him to allow time for a serious commitment to transparency during the remainder of the process of creating the Health Care Bill.

The eight Senators call for 72 hours of public disclosure at three points: prior to the first vote on the Senate floor, prior to the vote on final passage of the bill in the Senate, and prior to the vote on final passage of the conference report in the Senate. Likewise, the senators call for CBO budget analysis at each of these three stages.

These are the senators who, for whatever reason, have chosen to take the issue of public disclosure seriously:

• Blanche L. Lincoln
• Evan Bayh
• Mary L. Landrieu
• Joseph I. Lieberman
• Claire McCaskill
• Ben Nelson
• Mark L. Pryor
• Jim Webb

The Senators express a clear understanding of the benefits of transparency:

Our constituents will have the opportunity to evaluate these policies and communicate their concerns or their message of support to their Members of Congress. As their democratically-elected representatives in Washington, D.C., it is our duty to listen to their concerns and to provide them with the chance to respond to proposals that will impact their lives. At a time when trust in Congress and the U.S. government is unprecedentedly low, we can begin to rebuild the American people's faith in their federal government through transparency and by actively inviting Americans to participate in the legislative process.

Of course it remains to be seen whether this letter from the eight Senators is a mere gesture, but I'm glad to see that they're moving in the right direction.

Not being one to give Congress too much credit, I suspect their appreciation for the value of sunlight came from numbers such as these:

• Among U.S. voters, 83% say legislation should be posted online in final form and available for everyone to read before Congress votes on it.
• Only 6% of voters disagree with this approach.
• Of those who favor posting congressional bills, 64% say they should be available to the public at least two weeks before Congress votes.

Pundits note that this process of disclosure would add at least three weeks to any schedule for ramming Obamacare through the Senate, but with 1,363 days remaining until the health care bill would go into effect, 21 days is a drop in the bucket.

via Memeorandum

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