Members of Congress Don’t Read Bills Because No One in Washington Reads Anything
Congress returned from its Memorial Day recess last week to continued debate about the merits of various provisions in the House-passed “big, beautiful bill.” Among Members themselves, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) drew some of the biggest reactions for this tweet:
https://x.com/RepMTG/status/1929946902566494653
Put aside for the moment the substance of her comments, about whether states should have the authority to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) or not. Most people instead focused on her first sentence: “Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of” the bill. Cue outrage from the peanut galleries: What do you mean you didn’t know about this provision—didn’t you read the bill before you voted for it?
But in reality, Greene and her colleagues in Congress are merely reflecting cultural trends rather than setting them. Truth be told, few people in Washington actually read things in full—that applies to congressional staff as much as the Members themselves. In that sense, Greene’s tweet represented a “Kinsley gaffe,” in which a politician makes the mistake of stating an inconvenient truth.
Difficult Timing
When it comes to the legislation in question, reading it in full prior to the vote would have proved challenging for any lawmaker—and, as usual, that was by design. For starters, the 42-page manager’s amendment was finalized at 7:38 PM on Wednesday, May 21, and was posted at some point shortly thereafter. The House of Representatives started considering the rule for the bill at 11:48 PM that day—roughly four hours after the manager’s package was released—and the vote on final passage ended at 6:56 AM on the morning of Thursday, May 22—less than 12 hours after the manager’s package was completed.
While relatively short in scope, the manager’s package made amendments to the underlying bill text; for instance, one provision reads, “Page 371, line 25, strike ‘or any other provision of law.’” That sentence means nothing without a copy of the underlying legislation, such that comprehending the manager’s package of necessity would involve flipping back and forth between the amendment and the 1,118-page base bill to understand the interactions.
Perhaps most importantly, the bill lacked a complete Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score until this past Wednesday—two weeks after the House passed the bill. Thus, even if Rep. Greene, or any of her colleagues, had taken the time to read the bill and the manager’s amendment—which they only could have analyzed as lawmakers were debating the bill on the House floor—they still arguably would not, and could not, have had a full comprehension of its fiscal impact without a full CBO score. (Whether CBO accurately scores legislation is its own separate question; regardless, it remains an important data point to consider.)
That doesn’t mean Rep. Greene had no choices, of course. She could have voted against the bill, on the grounds that she will not support any legislation she did not have an opportunity to read or understand. But lawmakers generally ignore concerns about process if they like (or in Greene’s case, think that they like) the substance of the legislation. The House Freedom Caucus was founded to defend the prerogatives of backbench Members, including time to review legislation, but last week demanded that the House “immediately” pass a rescissions package of spending cuts “the same week it is presented to Congress.”
Ignorant Reporters
Members of Congress have plenty of company when it comes to not reading documents before acting on them. Case in point: My recent story highlighting how Politico stealthily re-wrote a piece, without disclosing same to readers, after I pointed out that the article’s premise contradicted a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released the same day as the Politico story.
I asked the reporter in question, Robert King, point-blank whether he had read the GAO report before writing the article—a question he did not answer. While the full report, including appendices, came to 323 pages, the Medicaid section totaled just over eight—so it’s not like he needed to digest an entire book before publishing his story. But apparently, asking a reporter to read eight whole pages is too much these days.
I don’t know for a fact what led to the error-laden article in question. But if I had to guess, the reporter in question likely got fed the story from a Democrat source, who wanted to “pre-but” GAO’s annual high-risk update, which gave Republicans a chance to highlight improper payments in Medicaid. If a Democrat source had spoon-fed him the story, that would certainly explain why he didn’t bother to read the GAO report—and why he went into the Witness Protection Program when I started asking specific questions about his “reporting” (such as it was).
Clickbait Culture
The fact of the matter is, few people bother to read things in their entirety these days. Reporters certainly don’t. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve seen “newsletters” highlight stories—“here’s what we’re reading,” they claim—with links clearly copied from other publications’ daily digest of articles. (Obvious question: How do you know that a story is “news” if you haven’t even read it?)
It’s one of the reasons why I have spent little time posting on social media of late, because the culture comes straight out of Glengarry Glenn Ross: Always Be Clickbaiting. I would rather spend my time reading, analyzing, and digesting policy in detail than making snap judgments about topics I neither fully know nor fully understand.
While I did not read the “big, beautiful bill” in full before analyzing the “mishmash” of its contents, for much the reasons laid out above, that post constitutes the exception to my own personal rule. As to those criticizing Rep. Greene for her “full transparency,” I would ask them to be similarly transparent, and enlighten the public as to whether they read every article, report, or document they tweet about in full before commenting on them. Who knows—if enough people followed this example, they might receive some knowledge before (or, better yet, instead of) making hasty judgments.