8 Dem Senators Push Reid for Transparency on Health Bill

by Warner Todd Huston | October 10, 2009 4:58 pm

As reported earlier[1], Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has been fighting against efforts to institute transparency in the healthcare debate by posting SB3200, the House healthcare bill, online for at least 72 hours before the bill comes to the floor. Similarly, efforts to bring transparency to the Senate’s Baucus bill are also in the offing in the other chamber of the Legislative Branch.

As it happens eight Democratic Senators are pressuring Democrat Majority leader Harry Reid (D, Nevada) to post the Senate’s version of Obamacare online for 72 hours[2] before a floor vote.

The senators told Reid that health care reform should be more transparent and easier for their constituents to understand.

Earlier in the debate, Senator Jim Bunning (R, Kentucky) introduced an amendment that would have seen the bill posted online before a floor vote. It was defeated[3] amid charges by Democrat Senator Baucus that Bunning was trying to stall progress on the legislation.

It appears that the eight Senate Democrats include Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Arkansas); Evan Bayh (Indiana); Mary Landrieu (Louisiana); Joe Liberman (Connecticut); Claire McCaskill (Missouri); Ben Nelson (Nebraska); Mark Pryor (Aranksas) and Jim Webb (Virginia).

It is well known, of course, that President Obama campaigned on the transparency-in-government issue. Obama even promised that every bill would be online for five days before a floor vote — a sight longer than the mere 72 hours of current efforts. Thus far, Obama has yet to live up to this promise. Unfortunately, it is obvious that the Democrat leadership in the Senate and the House have little interest in abiding by Obama’s campaign promise of transparency. It also seems doubtful that Obama himself has much interest in it any longer.

In this day and age, however, there is no reason not to post these bills online for all to see 72 hours or more before a floor vote. It is easy enough to do, certainly. But is there any will to do it in Congress or the White House? There certainly should be even if there isn’t. And that there isn’t is a crime in and of itself.

As an editorial in the San Francisco Examiner[4] states:

Passing the even more massive health care reform bill without reading it or allowing the public to do so will qualify as among the worse instances ever of legislative malpractice. The shameless message Democrats are thus sending to the American people, with tacit approval of the White House, is this: “We won’t read the bill, and neither will you.”

Indeed.