There have been more than 2,700 bills introduced so far in the current Congress. That’s more than 30 bills per day, every day this year, weekends included. Ordinary Americans have a hard time keeping up, of course. Congress does, too.
The controversy around the anti-sex-trafficking bill in the Senate last week illustrates this well. Debate around the formerly non-controversial bill fell into disarray when Democrats discovered language in the bill that would apply the Hyde Amendment to fines collected and disbursed by the government. (The Hyde Amendment bars government spending on abortion. Democrats argue that it has only applied in the past to appropriated funds, not disbursement of fines.)
How is it that it took until late March for Democrats to discover controversial language in a bill that was introduced in January?
Well, Congress is awash in archaic practices. For one, bills are written in “cut and bite” style—change this line, change that word, change another—rather than in a form that lays out what the law would look like if the bill were passed. That makes bills unreadable—a situation Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) has sought to remedy.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/congresss-archaic-information-practices
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