Yes, but it is deliberate

More commentary on our national legislature's aversion to actually reading its legislation:

The Senate fancies itself "the world's greatest deliberative body." But it's becoming increasingly clear that the Senate is not a deliberative body at all -- not when Senators concede that they would vote on legislation to overhaul one-sixth of our economy, and arguably the most important sixth, without having read the legislation. Specter's defense that there's not enough time for him to read it all himself simply raises the problem in a more acute from: why would the world's greatest deliberative body consider legislation on a timetable that leaves Senators with insufficient to see for themselves exactly what's in the bill?

Why? Because none of them are concerned with the overall effect of their legislation. Rather, each is focused on the narrow, specific vested interests they insert into the measure, often late at night when nobody's looking. So long as 51% of the House and Senate are thus satisfied, the bill is assured passage. Only once it's in motion does the cobbled-together nature and secondary effects, both intended and unintended, become evident.

Senator Specter's explanation that he divides reponsibility for reading 1,000-page bills amongst his aides only underscores my recent post -- it's not the people, through their representatives, who are in charge. It's scores of faceless, unelected aides and bureaucrats who are crafting the regulations by which we are each expected to live our lives.

Congress was never intended to be in perpetual session, nor was it expected to have a hand in so much of our existence that each legislator serves on dozens of overlapping "committees," the staffs of which wield considerable hidden power. Instead, Congress was to meet periodically, carefully deliberating occasional rudder changes for the ship of state. In today's mentality of the "permanent emergency," however, most Americans cannot conceive of America running on individual autopilot, with Congress safely where it belongs: outside the Beltway Border of Mordor, back in its home districts... close and accountable to the people who elect them.

The only way we'll have that again is to strip away all the unConstitutional power the government has accumulated.

"No man's life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature's in session." Quote variously attributed to Mark Twain and other prominent commentators. Doesn't matter who said it... the wisdom remains.

(HT: Instapundit)