In The News

At the end of business Monday, 73 lawmakers had pledged to read any health care bill in its entirety before signing it.

Let Freedom Ring, a “non-profit, grassroots organization supporting a Conservative agenda,” vowed to release the names of those who signed such a pledge, declined to sign or failed to respond to the organization’s push to hold members of Congress accountable for legislation that crosses their path.

Several from Texas signed the pledge: Sen. John Cornyn; Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison; Rep. Michael Burgess; Rep. John Carter; Rep. Mike Conaway; Rep John Culberson; Rep. Louie Gohmert; Rep. Kay Granger; Rep. Ralph Hall; Rep. Kenny Marchant; Rep. Pete Olson; Rep. Ron Paul; Rep. Pete Sessions; and Rep. Lamar Smith.

Once the Monday deadline passed, Let Freedom Ring promised to “begin targeted publicity campaigns thanking those who have signed and taking to task those who have not.”
In other words, self-preservation resides in signing a pledge that many may thumb their noses at initially but wish they’d taken seriously once the “targeted publicity campaigns” grow legs. You don’t think an organization supporting a certain political agenda can sway voters? Two words for you: Swift Boaters.

Writes Politico.com, “With staff, lobbyists and think tanks providing their own analysis of bills, members of Congress can go without reading the text. But Let Freedom Ring, a group that promotes constitutional government and traditional values, has launched a campaign to get all 535 lawmakers in the House and Senate to pledge to not vote on the health care bill (likely to top 1,000 pages) until they have personally read it and the bill has been posted on the Internet for 72 hours.”

Let Freedom Ring may be fueled by a conservative agenda, but holding legislators accountable for the bills they sign should be a bipartisan matter. Perhaps we did not realize the prevailing wisdom of allowing think tanks and lobbyists write the legislation and congressional staffers review every word before a congressman signs, oftentimes without reading every word.
Perhaps before bailouts and stimulus packages, we were content with — or blissfully ignorant about — the way Congress does business.

We’re no longer satisfied with the answer, “I didn’t get a chance to read the whole thing.”

And President Barack Obama, determined to pass a health care bill in the immediate future, should remember his campaign pledge to have bills available to read five days before a vote. That’s not too much to ask.

Regardless of how you fall on the matter, all of us can agree that failing to read the fine print can get you into a lot of trouble. And if a pre-teen can read the latest “Twilight” book, released at midnight, before lunch the next day, our lawmakers could read something as important to our daily lives as a health care bill in five days.