> ...and whether or not legislators "read" bills is irrelevant: they're voting based on political calculation and personal principles, and nothing is going to change that.
I think we should try change it. It's a horrible state of affairs.
I think we should try change it. It's a horrible state of affairs.
Roger Ebert's blog is amazing, and one of the reasons is that he generates amazingly thoughtful comments. He even managed to do a debate on creationism, in the context of Ben Stein's movie! Here's what happens when he does something overtly political. Note the comments.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/10/the_anger_of_the_fes...
(Something to notice: 1200+ comments later, and he is still responding to comments. The guy is a machine.)
Regardless, the idea that every voter on every piece of legislation is going to be conversant with every line in that legislation seems unrealistic.
I'm fine with the fact that Dick Durbin isn't doing line-by-line review of the health care reform bill, and with the idea that one party is lining up behind one set of experts and interests, and the other is lining up behind another one. Dick Durbin would do a crappy job of making good judgements about health care. Replace him with someone who's awesome at health care, and now you have someone who does a crappy job with defense contracts.
Is there more to it than that? Maybe a continuum of importance, where some proportion of the voters has to know some proportion of what the bill means. Then the rest can use a combination of guesswork and party line to make their decision... ? Oh wait.
It's a robust system! really!