Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., is pushing for a change to U.S. law that would require Congress to take more time to read the bills it passes, just weeks after Congress shoved through a $1.1 trillion spending bill in just a few days.
That vote reinvigorated conservative complaints about the need to give members more time to read legislation instead of simply rushing huge bills past members. But while Republicans have proposed that members must be given more time in the past, Bridenstine’s bill goes beyond and, and could force Congress to spend several weeks on legislation before passing it.
“Actually understanding legislative text is equivalent to deciphering hieroglyphics,” Bridenstine wrote in a blog post published Wednesday. “It’s not just the length of bills, but also their sheer complexity – riddled with mind-numbing jargon, legalese, and bureaucratic gobbledygook.”
“My bill would stop this madness first by requiring 24 hours review time for every 100 pages of legislative text with a guaranteed minimum of 72 hours for every bill,” Bridenstine wrote.
Today, the House operates under the “three day rule,” which requires three days to pass from when a bill is made public to when it’s considered. But Bridenstine and others have said GOP leaders have abused this rule for years, and cited the huge spending bill as the latest example.
“House Leadership introduced the Omnibus at 2:00 AM on Wednesday, December 16 and we voted that Friday at 10:00 AM. In other words, we had only 56 hours to review 2,000 pages of legislation,” Bridenstine said.
Bridenstine’s bill would also clarify that the clock on how long a bill has been publicly available when Congress is in session, adding more time to read legislation. He said if his legislation were in effect last year, Congress would have had to wait a full month before being able to pass the omnibus bill.
