WHEELING - Policies concerning climate change, taxes and health care often can't be summarized in a few words. Actually, members of Congress find it often takes more than a 1,000 pages to do this.
"Mega-bills," thousand-page pieces of legislation, are nothing new to the U.S. House and Senate. Their constituents, meanwhile, wonder whether their representatives can thoroughly examine the proposed laws on which they are voting.
U.S. Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., said lawmakers do not have to read every word of legislation to know how it affects a district. He noted they probably were involved with the pro-cess of crafting the bill and that they already have participated in what is likely its lengthy debate.
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CAPITO
There was no time to debate hundreds of last-hour pages.
But on the other side of the aisle, U.S. Rep. Shelly Moore Capito questions whether too many voluminous and complex changes are made to legislation just hours before the vote.
"We've seen the speaker and her team present us with thousand-page bills that aren't even finalized until hours before we're expected to vote on the bill," she said. "From the $700 billion financial bailout to the $787 billion stimulus and cap and trade - these were enormous pieces of legislation that deserved much more review and closer consideration.
"We had 300 new pages dropped into the "cap-and-trade" bill at 3 a.m. on the day of the vote. And with the last-minute changes made to round up votes, we're still learning what all was included. That sets dangerous precedent, and it's not the way we should be handling legislation."
Capito fears health care legislation presently being debated in Congress could be destined to the same fate, with a discussion draft on the issue "now approaching 900 pages," she said.
Numerous bills regarding health care reform ultimately will be folded into one piece of legislation.
"When you combine subcommittee bills or have tax bills, you are dealing with bills that run into thousands of pages," Mollohan said. "There's nothing new about that, at least in the last century - ever since we've had tax legislation."
Mollohan, who has been in office since 1982, remembers that the Clean Air Act of 1990 consisted of "thousands of pages."
"It is also not unusual for members of Congress to stand on the floor when they oppose legislation, and instead of talking about it substantively, attack it for being a large piece of legislation," he said. "The point is that every member who votes on legislation knows what the impact of the bill will be and whether it is desirable for their constituents. That's what's important."
Mollohan is himself a lawyer, and he noted that many in Congress are not. He suspects many of his colleagues read the legislation in terms of legalese, and that the "syntax might confuse them."
"But what they are not confused about is how it impacts their constituency," he continued. "It's a superficial attack on legislation to stand up and say it's a thousand pages long. So what."
He noted that legislation is debated and that many members are involved in the process of crafting it.
"If they don't know what is in bill, then they haven't been paying attention," he said. "Our understanding is not dependent on reading the bill. The thick pieces of legislation are, ironically, the ones understood most.
"To say the bill is too large and hasn't been read is usually flannel-mouth rhetoric," he added. "If a member of Congress doesn't know what the impact of legislation is going to be on their constituency, then they have been in the hospital for the last three months."