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Comment by thcwhuzzle | Hacker News Reader

Politicians don’t even read the laws they vote on. In many circumstances they literally aren’t even given the time to read the text.

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The major problem with politics nowadays is that it has become a "job", so people need to be re-elected to keep their life running; if they don't, they don't have anything else to do.

It shouldn't be like that: people should be elected for a duty, and after their duty is done, they should go back to their normal job, not seek infinite re-election.

The counter-argument to these sorts of notions (including things like legislative term limits) is that, in a sufficiently advanced political environment, this will make your representatives even more dependent on entrenched power-brokers to be effective—chiefly, bureaucrats and lobbyists.

Why should society be based around people having a ‘normal job’?

It shouldn’t necessarily but it is, so until that changes the political system has to account for it.

If you build a political system around that assumption, it’s not going to chance.

True, but what I meant was, in the context of the conversation, that the system must not be ignorant of the fact that regular people need to earn a living, and provide opportunities for regular people to participate without sacrificing a significant amount of time to fundraising.

I don’t know what the best solution is but if the system is only practically open to those that don’t need to work for a living then things surely will stay the same.

This, I agree with, but is a very different idea.

Unless their job is held for them while they serve (like maternity or military leave), they're going to spend the final year of their term job-hunting. Do you want your elected representative handing out resumes to powerful people hoping to curry their favor?

I have strong opinions on a lot of laws I have not actually read. I will rely on experts, and so do politicians (that might be experts within their party, staff, lobbyists ...). The main skill is to decide whom to trust. I do not really see any alternative - I do not think a parliament with hundreds of delegates spending most of their day reading complex legal texts would be any better than what we see today. Still, I am sure most politicians spend much more time and resources to inform their vote than the average citizen.

What happens when those expert staff are deliberately pushing an agenda? Perfect example of politicians not knowing anything about what they're voting for is the absurd Article 13 in EU. Something that was impossible for anyone not called Alphabet or Facebook.

If they did know what they were voting for, that is far worse...

If professional full-time legislators cannot understand the legislation they’re voting on, they should not write it to be that unwieldy.

An alternative is having bills that are for a single issue that a layperson can understand. It is not just the politicians that need to understand what they are voting on. The people need to understand them too so they are aware when their representation is voting against their interests.

That seems reasonable to me. I'm in the UK, and I don't expect all 650 MPs to have a detailed understanding of 4 different pieces of legislation per day [0]. I _do_ expect them to have a brief pack from their staffers explaining what they're voting for though.

[0] https://votes.parliament.uk/Votes/Commons there was 12 votes in 3 days last week in the House of Commons

>I'm in the UK, and I don't expect all 650 MPs to have a detailed understanding of 4 different pieces of legislation per day

I respectfully disagree. The MPs (Members of Parliament) receive substantial remuneration to represent their constituents ─ including business expenses related to equipment, premises, staff, maintaining a second home etc. The main remit of their job is to be knowledgeable and informed of the bills they are voting upon. Most of these bills go through a lengthy process of debates, stages, readings and 'ping-pong' between HoC and HoL, before gaining the Royal Assent. There are absolutely no excuses for having a 'brief pack' and then vote based on a toss of a coin. Your reasonable expectation breeds complacency and apathy, absolving public servants of responsibility. As a taxpayer and a citizen, it is especially important to demand more at this crucial juncture, where they are stripping away any laws, which can be used to hold themselves accountable, whilst introducing Draconian measures.

https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/

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