Brian Baird's proposal for reading legislation before voting on it:

November 17, 2004
Washington, D.C. - U.S. Rep. Brian Baird has asked Republican House Leadership to ensure members have time to read bills before voting on them. Currently, House Rules provide for a three day period for all legislation, which gives members a chance to review the details of a bill prior to voting on it. Unfortunately, the Republican majority frequently waives this three day rule. They have done so on some of the most important, lengthy and expensive bills considered in the 108th Congress. Rep. Baird’s proposed change would require the House of Representatives to approve the waiver of this three day period by a two thirds majority vote.

“We were given less than 24 hours to consider the Medicare bill, one of the most substantive, complicated changes to our nation’s health care system in the last century,” said Rep. Baird. “The Medicare bill was over 600 pages long, authorized hundreds of billions of the taxpayers’ dollars, and members of Congress were not given enough time to read through it once before voting.”

The lack of time for review of legislation has long been a concern for members of both parties. In 1993, a Republican Leadership Task Force on Deliberative Democracy quoted, “A bill that cannot survive a 3-day scrutiny of its provisions is a bill that should not be enacted.” Rep. Baird’s rule would allow for time sensitive legislation to have the option to be rushed, but would prevent the routine waiver of the layaway period.

Rep. Baird added, “In order to responsibly fulfill our duties as elected representatives, members of the House of Representatives must have sufficient time to carefully review legislation, as well as propose and vote on amendments. This rule change would prevent the reckless rush to vote on consequential legislation without giving Members time to even read the entire text of the bill.”

Rep. Baird proposed this change to the Rules Committee on Friday, November 12, 2004. He is circulating a Dear Colleague asking for Republican and Democratic support for this common sense rules change. All changes to the Rules Committee procedure will be introduced in a bill by the Majority Leader the first day of the new Congress.