The phrase “do-nothing Congress” is used so often that one wonders if it has always applied and always will. But as the 109th Congress prepares to adjourn this weekend, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein offer some depressing context in a Los Angeles Times commentary. The 11 appropriations bills are unfinished. More than 25 of the year’s fewer than 100 days in session have seen no votes scheduled before 6:30 p.m., and the typical congressional workweek now lasts from Tuesday evening through noon Thursday. Of greater concern to the authors, though, is how Congress increasingly pushes through “sloppy and ill-considered legislation” to score political points. “The framers wanted Congress to move slowly and deliberately,” they write. “But today, it is common to spring on the House and Senate a 1,000-page bill that has not been through any vetting process. With little notice and no time for anyone to read the bill, much less absorb or analyze it, with no amendments allowed, the leadership demands a party-line, up-or-down vote. This is a formula for poor oversight and worse law.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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