In December 2020, congressional leaders released a 5,593-page bill, one of the longest in American history, covering COVID relief and a full year of government funding. The text went public shortly before 2 p.m. Both chambers passed it that same night. (CBS News)
Nobody read it. Nobody could have read it. At a brisk two minutes a page, it would have taken more than a week of round-the-clock reading. Members voted on what leadership told them was in it, and the public found out the rest later.
That wasn't a fluke, and it isn't one party's sin. Today we're publishing our fifth common-sense bill to stop it: the 72-Hour Rule.
Both Parties Do It
- December 2020 (Democratic House, Republican Senate): 5,593 pages, released and passed the same day.
- December 2022 (Democratic House and Senate): a 4,155-page, $1.7 trillion omnibus posted at 1:40 a.m. on December 20. The Senate passed it two days later and the House the day after that. (Roll Call)
- March 2024 (Republican House): a 1,012-page, $1.2 trillion package unveiled early on a Thursday and passed Friday under a fast-track procedure. The Speaker waived his own conference's 72-hour pledge to beat a shutdown deadline. (Roll Call)
Notice the pattern. Whoever is in the minority demands time to read the bill. Whoever is in the majority finds a reason why there isn't any.
"But Doesn't the House Already Have a 72-Hour Rule?"
Sort of. Since 2019, House rules have said bill text should be available for 72 hours before a floor vote. Before that, the rule said "three days," which could mean about a day and a half in practice. But it's a House rule, and a simple majority can waive it by passing a procedural "special rule" written by the Rules Committee. Critics call those "martial law" rules. Bills can also skip it entirely under suspension of the rules. (Congressional Research Service)
The Senate has no comparable standing rule at all.
A rule the majority can switch off whenever it's inconvenient isn't much of a rule. It gets switched off exactly when it matters most: the giant, deadline-driven packages that spend the most money and carry the most hidden riders.
Credit Where It's Due
We didn't invent this. For more than a decade, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has introduced the Read the Bills Act, which grew out of a 2006 proposal by the citizens' group DownsizeDC, to guarantee time to read every bill before a vote. It has died in committee every time, but the idea is right, and we're glad to build on it. (Wikipedia) Our goal is a version that's binding, workable on the floor, and able to win votes from both parties.
What Our Bill Does
- 72 real hours, in both chambers. No final vote in the House or Senate until the bill's text has been public online for 72 consecutive hours. Weekends count.
- Leadership changes restart the clock. Manager's amendments, substitutes, and "self-executing" changes slipped in through a procedural vote are where the real abuse happens, so they restart the 72 hours.
- Ordinary floor amendments stay workable. A Member offering an amendment in open debate is healthy deliberation, not a loophole. Those just have to be posted before they're offered. Otherwise every Senate "vote-a-rama" would stall every bill for three more days, and nobody in either party would vote for that.
- Readable, not just posted. Every bill comes with a redline showing exactly how it changes current law, a plain-language summary, and the CBO cost estimate when available. A 4,000-page bill that says "strike subsection (b)(2)(iii)" is useless without that.
- Hard to waive. A waiver takes its own two-thirds recorded vote, and even then the text must be public for at least 48 hours. Why 48 and not 24? The March 2024 package passed about a day and a half after release with more than two-thirds support. A 24-hour floor wouldn't have touched it. The only exceptions are a declaration of war or a response to an armed attack.
- In the rulebook, too. It asks the House to adopt these rules every January and the Senate to adopt them as a standing order.
The Honest Trade-offs
- Each chamber can change its own rules. The Constitution gives the House and Senate power over their own procedures, so a future majority could undo this, most easily in the House rules package adopted every January. That's why the bill also asks for it to be written into those rules, and why a waiver has to be a separate, recorded, two-thirds vote: breaking the rule becomes a public act. The permanent fix is our Single-Subject Rule amendment.
- Nobody can force a Member to read. True. But 72 hours lets staff, reporters, watchdog groups, and ordinary citizens read it. The pork and the mistakes get found before the vote instead of months later.
- Emergencies happen. That's what the two-thirds waiver, the 48-hour floor, and the war-or-attack exception are for. The target is manufactured urgency.
- Deals get harder at the deadline. Negotiators will have to finish three days earlier. Good. That's even easier with our No More Shutdowns amendment, which removes the cliff that drives most midnight deals.
Why This Pairs With No Budget, No Pay
Earlier today we published No Budget, No Pay, a first step that holds Members' pay when they miss the budget deadline or shut the government down. A fair objection to any deadline pressure is that it might push Congress to rush. This bill answers that objection. Put them together and the rule becomes simple: do your job on time, and do it in the open.
You wouldn't sign a mortgage you weren't allowed to read. Congress shouldn't sign one on your behalf, either.
Read the bill, download the documents, and send it to your Representative →
Sources
• Congress passes 5,593-page COVID relief and government funding bill — CBS News
• Senate passes $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill — Roll Call
• Read the full 4,155-page, $1.7 trillion government funding bill — The Hill
• House passes sweeping fiscal 2024 spending package — Roll Call
• Read the Bills Act — Wikipedia
• Sen. Paul looks to force Senate to read bills it passes — The Hill
• Availability of Legislative Measures in the House (The "72-Hour Rule") — Congressional Research Service