PLAYING BLIND

 “That’s hilarious!” I exclaimed in response to the article I was reading on my phone. 

“I hope you’re not laughing at someone’s misfortune again,” replied Socrates. “That really is your least attractive feature.” 

“And your least attractive feature is being concerned about how attractive my features are,” I responded. “And you should laugh too. I’m reading an article about a congressman who admitted in front of his constituents that he hadn’t read the entirety of a bill he voted for.” [1]  

To that Socrates did laugh. “That’ll be front and center for his opponent in the next election. But what bill was this?” 

“It was that One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” [2]  

Socrates shook his head. “What a name for legislation. We really aren’t serious anymore, are we? But give the guy a break. That bill is over a thousand pages long.” 

“Still, shouldn’t our members of Congress read the bills before they vote on them?” 

“That would make sense. But it doesn’t happen that way. Sometimes they don’t even understand what’s in the bills they vote on.” [3]  

It was my turn to shake my head. “What are you going to do?” 

“Perhaps the first thing to do would be to take steps to keep legislation from being a thousand pages. Do you see any way to make that happen?” 

“I sure don’t. I tried to read a federal statute before. You could lose your eyesight doing that.” 

“Do you think it would be sensible to pass a law that required members of Congress to read legislation before it is voted on?” [4]  

“How would you enforce that? We’re talking about politicians here. Wouldn’t they just lie about it, and say they read the legislation when they didn’t?” 

“Couldn’t you make them swear to it under oath? Lying to the public might be standing operating procedure. But perjury might be a step too far for some of them.” 

“Maybe. But some of them might take comfort in the fact that making a perjury charge stick in such cases would be highly difficult to prove.” 

“We could require that they be able to present evidence that they read the legislation. What would you say to the idea of making it mandatory that they write out the legislation by hand, with a pen, before they vote on it? They would be required to keep their handwritten copies in a folder, available for inspection. And they wouldn’t be allowed to vote on a bill until they presented their handwritten copy to the chair.” 

I had to laugh at that one. “That would certainly do away with thousand page bills.” 

“Especially since there could be a requirement that no member of Congress could introduce a bill until he or she had written the entirety of it by hand.” 

“They would just make a member of their staff write it out.” 

“To prevent that, we could make it mandatory that whenever someone gets elected to Congress for the first time he or she would provide the clerk with a handwriting exemplar.” 

I laughed again. “Yep. That would probably take care of it. Let’s write our member of Congress immediately!” 

“I’m pretty sure members of Congress would see our idea as an unacceptable imposition,” Socrates said with a sardonic grin.  

“Then what’s the point of even talking about this?”  

“Well, if the idea gains currency, the pressure on Congress might become irresistible.” 

“But if things become too inconvenient for them they might quit.” 

“And give up all that legal inside trading? Fat chance. But there’s another step we could take to shorten legislation. And this is one that falls more within the Overton window, since 43 states have already adopted it.” [5]  

“Which is?” 

“It’s called the single subject rule. Under the rule, no bill may embrace or contain more than a single subject.” 

“And how would a single subject be defined?” 

“Like many things, the idea suffers from the paucity of human language. But there would be obvious cases. For example, a law limiting imports of automobiles would embrace a different subject than a law against kidnapping. On the other hand, would a law limiting imports of automobiles cover the same subject as one limiting the import of auto parts cover the same subject? I think the best way to implement the rule would be to ask the question whether one could logically agree with one part of the legislation and disagree with another part. If that could be done without contradiction, the legislation would fail the single subject test.” 

“Okay, I see that. But wouldn’t that interfere with the wheeling and dealing that goes on in Congress? One member will agree to vote for a bill if it contains a provision he or she wishes to add, and not otherwise. It’s already hard enough to get Congress to act. Wouldn’t it make the problem worse if senators and representatives couldn’t add unrelated matter to their bills?” 

“They could engage in the same wheeling and dealing with separate pieces of legislation, assuming that would be a good thing.” 

“But wouldn’t this require a constitutional amendment?” 

“To be effective it would. But that’s okay, we’ve done it before.” 

“Well, it would certainly shorten legislation, and make it simpler,” I said. “And there would be less excuse for members of Congress to vote on laws they haven’t read.” 

“It would be better for the public too,” Socrates added. “James Madison himself pointed out that representative democracy is meaningless where the laws are so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. [6] And we don’t want that. Do we?”