I am sure I can give other examples of the same kind of thing I am going to detail below but this one, even after 20 years, is so egregious both for its blantent abuse and it’s long-term impact on this country.
On October 23, 2001 a bill was introduced in Congress and was passed overwhelmingly a mere 3 days later and signed into law.
Now this not a one line bill congratulating someone on their 100th birthday or some such thing.
No, this was a bill passed in response to 9/11, only 43 days after that tragic event. It has become known as the PATRIOT Act. It has changed the way government is allowed to detain, investigate, and arrest people ever since. It encompasses everything to secret incarcerations to the FBI opening your mail to wiretapping without court order; to name just a few.
Now i am not going to discuss the merits of this act here, even though you can probably guess my general thought
But lets examine the bill itself some statistics:
- 1 New statute
- Amended 11 Federal Acts
- Amended 10 Federal Titles
- Added 9 United States Coded
- Amended @ 100 United States Coded (I keep losing count)
- The act itself, when printed, is 342 pages long.
Now to the fist of this posting about how Congress really works.
First, there is no way in hell that this was written in 42 days. It did not happen. That is a fact. It takes too damned long to coordinate the effects on the infrastructure of the multiple agencies for this to be done that quickly. This was years in the making.
Secondly, the person who introduced the bill, Frank James Sensenbrenner Jr., likely had little or nothing to do with the creation of the bill. No offence, Jim, but this was out of your wheelhouse. It was delivered to him, talking points were given, and he was pointed to the podium. Why, not enough time for anything else.
Third, I seriously doubt any Congressperson or Senator read the bill before they voted on it. Oh, I am sure they were given a synopsis by the REAL sponsors and they had their aids peruse it as much as they could to get a general sense of it. But here is the problem: it was 342 pages and it was not a beach novel. It has to be carefully read; read multiple times; read in detail; compared to the laws and statutes it affects and supercedes and vetted. That is not happening in 3 stinking days: no way – no how.
So how does Congress work? They generally do not have a concise understanding of what a bill is really about. They take advise from part leaders, they take synopsis reads from their aids, and they vote blindly; hoping for the best.
I sometimes suspect they drag their feet on their vote long enough for pundits to tear into the bill and recap the actual plusses and minuses of a bill so they feel good voting.
