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Pelosi was for three-day "read the bill" rule before she forgot it on Obamacare
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
11/08/09 6:36 PM EST
There are two ways to view this video of a 2005 floor speech by then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, condemning Republican leaders for not allowing members three days to read "a bill of thousands of pages" before voting on it.
The video is posted on Breitbart TV and is well worth watching in the aftermath of Speaker Pelosi's legislative blitzkreig of the past week to gain passage of her version of Obamacare at all costs. It was done with not even a token nod in the direction of allowing the sort of legislative transparency she promised voters during the 2006 campaign enroute to becoming House Speaker.
The most obvious and immediate take on the video is disgust with the unsurpassed hypocriscy of Pelosi in forcing the Obamacare bill through to passage despite its massive size, its gigantic implications for changing the daily lives of every American, and its enormous impact on the financial integrity of the government.
But let's not forget the context in which Pelosi's 2005 speech was delivered. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other leaders of the Republican majority that held power prior to 2006 were routinely doing exactly what Pelosi just did wth Obamacare - jamming continuing resolutions consisting of thousands of pages and costing trillions of dollars through Congress with barely enough time to read the titles, much less the entire text.
Bottomline: A binding, 72-hour public posting of all legislation should be an inviolate rule no matter which party is in power in either chamber of Congress. And it cannot happen too soon. The people at Readthebill.org need your help.
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