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Dems No Vote on Transparency

Submitted by kmorrison on Fri, 04/03/2009 - 13:22
in

All but three Senate Democrats voted against an amendment, "To increase transparency by requiring five days of public review of legislation before passage by the Senate." This simply states that bills that are rushed through the Senate would have to garner 60 votes only if they had not been posted online for five days. The irony of the Democrat's opposition is this measure is taken directly from the Obama presidential campaign. President Obama promised more transparency in the government by posting bills online for citizens to review prior to a vote. Apparently all Democratic Senators except, Senators Bayh, Nelson, and McCaskill disagree with this increased transparency. This measure doesn't exclude a majority vote on any bill it simply protects against slipping measures into a bill without an adequate review, a protection against situations like the AIG bonus fiasco. It would be interesting to hear the individual Senator's reasons for opposing transparency, and if the President is planning to stick to his campaign promise of putting bills online for review prior to a vote.

More information on the Cornyn Transparency Amendment

Democrats Vote Against Transparency

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Purple People Vote

Broad Side of the Barn - An Independent Call

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Comments

so how long now does it take before one can vote on a senate

Submitted by RisingTide on Fri, 04/03/2009 - 13:35.

bill? harumph.also -- where the hell is feingold?

With the Stimulus...

Submitted by kmorrison on Fri, 04/03/2009 - 14:46.

...it went so fast in the House that no one even had a change to read the bill.  I believe the Senate only had one more day than the House to review it.  That is where Sen. Dodd is in hot water now, as he (or someone representing him) included a last minute measure that protected AIG's bonuses, which almost no one knew about.

Does sound like an ammendment Feingold would support doesn't it?

umm... that's actually incorrect.

Submitted by RisingTide on Fri, 04/03/2009 - 14:57.

Montanan Senator Tester read the whole Stimulus bill, as did most Senators -- 700 pages, but only a paragraph per page.

Senator Dodd included a provision, as requested by Treasury dept. officials, when the AIG Bailout bill was in conference -- this is where the House and Senate bills get resolved, and is one of those mundane and boring things well covered over at CongressMatters

http://www.congressmatters.com/

Yeah, which is why I think I smell a rat. Maybe it's just an implementation issue -- would cost X to do this... or maybe it's a "we haven't got the money since we're still paying for all the republican staffers from last congress"... even with many fewer republicans.

The House didn't have a chance to read it...

Submitted by kmorrison on Fri, 04/03/2009 - 15:20.

I didn't say that no Senator read it, I said none of the House members had a chance to read all of it.  The Senate wasn't given that much more time than the House though.