Think back to the beginning of the Obama Administration. The ACA was being debated and changes were occurring rapidly, with the aim of getting the 60 votes needed in the Senate to pass the legislation. Republicans (who unanimously opposed the now-popular legislation) demanded at least 72 hours to read the 906 page Act (equivalent size to a typical novel, due to the wide borders and double spacing). This demand for time to read legislation has become a theme in the halls of Congress, so much so that the leadership has baked this into the House rules for any piece of legislation. To ensure transparency. And time to read the bill, to ensure that nothing nefarious or awful is slipped into the bill at the last minute.

As proud as Speaker Johnson is of this rule, he has repeatedly found reason to ignore it. Early this year, he waived the rule to vote on the government funding legislation, angering the conservative members of his own caucus. That time, less than 48 hours was available to read 1,096 pages. Perhaps he felt it unimportant since the Trump Administration planned to ignore the funding anyways (in their quest to cut fraud, waste and abuse). But Speaker Johnson beat his own record this time on the OBBBA (known as the “Big Beautiful Bill” in MAGA circles) – this time they only had 7 hours before the vote for final passage (in the middle of the night). This included a ‘manager’s amendment’ which altered many elements passed out of the committees in order to attract or retain a few precious votes. Every vote was needed, as the bill passed the House with only one vote to spare. And despite the size of the bill (over 1,000 pages), only a couple of hours were permitted on the House floor to debate the bill.

What could possibly go wrong? Well, this week two conservative members who voted for the bill (Rep Flood of Nebraska and Rep Greene of Georgia) came out and declared that some element of the bill vexed them so much that they would not have voted for it if they knew what was in the bill. Try that technique out at work next time – ‘I wouldn’t have submitted that report if I knew what it said.’ Sounds like the adult version of ‘the dog ate my homework’. These folks have staff that they can divvy up large bills between them to get through the details of a bill. Most of the bill was available to them out of the committees days prior (particularly the items that these two representatives publicly objected to). Or they could have listened to the debate on the House floor where the objectionable topics were raised, albeit by Democrats. Maybe they could keep track of what is going on in the session, thus earning their $174,000 (nearly 3 times that of the average American adult). But I suspect this is asking too much from the power hungry representatives, whose districts have been gerrymandered into alien-shaped districts to ensure their lack of accountability.

Or perhaps the American people deserves more transparency so that we can more fully provide input to our representatives so that they may be responsive to our interests (not the interests of one person who sits in the White House watching cable news). Unfortunately, I don’t expect much better from the Senate as they begin their ‘debate’ on the debt ballooning bill.

And the national disgrace continues…