What Is WRONG With Our Legislative Process?

Although there are many areas where our nation's legislative process could be improved upon, the single most glaring point must be the practice of attaching totally unrelated amendments/riders/codicils and various other assorted hitch-hikers to any bill. All legislation should be able to qualify for an up or down vote based strictly upon it's stand-alone merit. There should be no deal making such as, "I don't like your Military Armament bill, but I'll support it if you allow me to attach my 'Contact Lenses for Myopic Armenian Canaries' bill, which nobody wants."

What kind of crap is that? That is where probably 95% of the Congressional "pork" comes from - hiding some worthless (to anybody other than the author) ego-boosting, vote-garnering, self-serving piece of legislation inside a must have piece of legislation!


If there are questions about the merits of a proposed bill, then debate those merits on the floor of the House and/or Senate. If the bill is legitimate, in the best interests of the country, and is sustainable then PASS IT! If it fails to meet objective criteria for passage then reject it. But, under no circumstances should proposed legislation be polluted with unrelated garbage riders! The present "Health Care" legislation began as an 1,100+ page document, which nobody read. It has now grown to 2,400+ pages! Who in the world will read -much less understand - everything on those 2,400+ pages? I would be surprised if even 10% of our elected representatives could honestly say they read it all. That's a LOT of ink... and most of that ink will be red instead of read.