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Get Off the Omnibus

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“Not one member of the Senate will read this bill before we vote on it,” said Sen. Rand Paul, last Friday. The junior senator from Kentucky had received the 600-​page monstrosity mere hours before, and yet the august solons managed to pass it by a huge majority before close-of-business.

The legislation tackled three big funding extensions — another grab-​bag “omnibus” bill in all but name. Obviously a rush job, even with the short turn-​around it was too late for the president to sign that weekend.

By Senate internal rules, bills are supposed to be delivered 48 hours before any vote, to give time for senators to peruse their content. “We ought to adhere to our own rules,” said Sen. Paul, who went on to note that 48 hours isn’t that much time to read and comprehend everything in a bill of such length.

Such is the chaos in the Senate, run, apparently, like a business set on course to fail.

In a perhaps quixotic attempt to re-​insert some sense of responsibility in the underachieving outfit, Paul has introduced two pieces of legislation, one requiring a day’s wait for every 20 pages of a bill, before voting, another designed to prohibit bills on more than one subject.

Frankly, I’d rather require every senator who votes on a law to be present in the chamber while the law in question is read aloud.

And the “one subject rule” is the kind of thing that many states have, regulating citizen-​initiated measures. What’s foisted on the people should definitely be yoked onto the Senate, which obviously needs an omnibus-​load of tough “love.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

2 replies on “Get Off the Omnibus”

Hello All,

I’ve been saying this for a long time and now Paul Jacob has said it too. Why are all these things that have nothing to do with each other stuffed into one bill? It causes unreasonable compromise. “Well, I voted for it because it had this in it. But I did not much like the rest of it.” That is not even a compromise! That is simply screwing We The People over! Vote it down…

I guess being a junior in the Club of 100 doesn’t give much power. Yet it is enough power to take down our country. 

Term Limits will solve this stupidity. The clique must be dissolved of old blood and new blood must be inserted. 

All bills must be single-​issue and stand on their own. Read it, think on it, vote on it. 

What is so hard about that?

Happy Independence Day!!!

John Mattacola in Sioux Falls

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