Saturday, August 14, 2010

Senate Passes "The ______Act of____" (Not a Joke)

Reading the bills they vote on is apparently to much for to many of our representatives (fyi, to many in my book is one). The size of the bill does not seem to mater, and many are not shy about their refusal to do what seems to be included in their most basic job description. That was part of the impetus for my Time to Prank Congress; if they are not going to bother reading what they were passing I jokingly called on people to see what they could 'sneak' in.

Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction with the Senate apparently pranking themselves. They passed "The ______Act of____". That is the actual name of the bill that they passed; underscores and all. Apparently it is not that our representatives start reading it and just give up, they did not make it past the first word.

http://www.washingtonwatch.com/blog/2010/08/08/senate-passes-the-______act-of____-no-foolin (via)

"What a mess the Senate has made of H.R. 1586. It’s a package of spending and revenue measures—but we’ll ignore the substance for now because they have so utterly goofed up the name.
...
In the House and Senate, they often publish amendments ahead of time, and it looks like someone was in a rush to get the amendment together, because they left blank lines where the new name of the bill should have been.

Take a look for yourself. Down toward the bottom of this page in the Congressional Record, it says, “SECTION 1. This Act may be cited as the “_______Act of______”. (The Library of Congress’ Thomas reporting system picked that up as the “XXXXXXAct ofXXXX,” so that’s how it shows up on our site.)

Well, THAT’s the amendment they brought up and passed, so the new name of the bill is the “_______Act of______.”
"

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Like what you read; Subscribe/Fan/Follow