House Appropriators May Limit Public Availability of Pending Bills

Attila Dimedici writes "The House Appropriations Committee is considering a draft report that would forbid the Library of Congress to allow bulk downloads of bills pending before Congress. The Library of Congress currently has an online database called THOMAS (for Thomas Jefferson) that allows people to look up bills pending before Congress. The problem is that THOMAS is somewhat clunky and it is difficult to extract data from it. This draft report would forbid the Library of Congress from modernizing THOMAS until a task force reports back. I am pretty sure that the majority of people on Slashdot agree that being able to better understand how the various bills being considered by Congress interact would be good for this country."

House Committee on Appropriations

[SirGarlon]

Since the author of TFA was too lazy to Google for this and paste in a hyperlink, here [house.gov] is the current membership of the House Committee on Appropriations. If one of these jackass^H^H^H^H fine public servants represents your district, you might want to let him/her know what you think of this report.

Re:Seems like a problem that could be fixed...

[wireloose]

I don't see it as a big issue, either. The original article and the repost here are all FUD. If you read the bill, the congressional concerns are that the legislative data is downloaded intact and authenticated. They seem to be concerned that there is no way to lock an XML file in a manner similar to a PDF, which is already a common format used by much of the federal government. There is also concern about certificates. And there is language about the costs of developing a system. It's all in the bill itself, pages 17 and 18.

http://appropriations.house.gov/UploadedFiles/LEGBRANCH-FY13-FULLCOMMITTEEREPORT.pdf

Obviously, the biggest issue is that detractors for each party will modify downloaded bills to meet their own political agendas and mudslinging goals. I would prefer to see this done correctly, too.

Troll Headline and Summary

[sycodon]

Let's try a more reasonable one...

"The House Appropriations Committee is considering holding off on modernizing THOMAS until the system "owners" finalize the specifications."

It is entirely reasonable to put a hold on a project until everyone knows what it's going to be and buys off on the changes.

I am pretty sure that the majority of people on Slashdot agree that to dive into a project that will undoubtedly be large and expensive and is highly visible without nailing down the details first is irresponsible and a recipe for failure.

Re:Troll Headline and Summary

[sycodon]

I forgot to mention that there is no discussion of taking THOMAS offline pending the upgrade.

Re:Opacity in government

[sycodon]

You both are delusional because there is no mention of taking THOMAS offline while they decide on how to upgrade it.

Re:Obviously

[0bject]

Article I, Section 8, clause 1 The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States Article I, Section 8, clause 3 To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes

Re:Obviously

[cpu6502]

Let's ask the author of the constitution (quoting from memory): "There is nothing more natural than to start with a general phrase, and qualify it with particulars. The phrase 'provide general welfare' is qualified by the list of specifically enumerated power below it. Congress may only exercise those powers.

"To suppose Congress might do anything that falls within the 'general welfare' would give the central government unlimited power to do whatever it pleases, and there is a whole host of proofs that was never intended by the original framers, nor by myself." - James Madison, author of the Constitution.

He also authored, with Jefferson, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions which state the powers of the central government are few, while the bulk of the power is reserved to the People and their Legislatures (amendment 10). The Congress may not mandate you buy car insurance. But the States can. It is a power reserved to them, and the same is true of any other form of insurance.

And finally:
Congress has the power to regulate commerce AMONG the states. Not inside the states, and most-definitely not commerce between two individuals (me and my doctor). They can NOT force me to buy insurance if I would rather pay cash directly to my physician.

Re:Obviously

[nbauman]

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1113618 [nejm.org]
The Irrelevance of the Broccoli Argument against the Insurance Mandate
Einer Elhauge, J.D.
N Engl J Med 2012; 366:e1January 5, 2012

Others argue that the Constitution's framers could not possibly have envisioned a congressional power to force purchases. However, in 1790, the first Congress, which was packed with framers, required all ship owners to provide medical insurance for seamen; in 1798, Congress also required seamen to buy hospital insurance for themselves. In 1792, Congress enacted a law mandating that all able-bodied citizens obtain a firearm. This history negates any claim that forcing the purchase of insurance or other products is unprecedented or contrary to any possible intention of the framers.

Re:Obviously

[hey!]

I would be very surprised if ObamaCare even made it into THOMAS.

Be surprised then. [loc.gov] Both The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the earlier House version called The Affordable Health Care for America Act [loc.gov] (subsequently amended into an entirely different bill) are in there. (And apropos of TFA, trying to find those bills then extract a stable URL is a pan because the UI appends session specific data to query result URLs).

But it turns out there's a good reason why you might have the impression that Obama was secretive about the health insurance reform bill.

Keep in mind that when it came to health insurance reform the political game had three sides. The Democrats in Congress wanted to pass the most ambitious reform bill they could manage. The White House wanted a bill big enough allow them to say they delivered on reform promises but not so big Obama face the kind of shit storm Clinton faced when he tried to do insurance reform. The Republicans wanted to force Obama and the House Democrats through the same political meat grinder they put Clinton through in the 1990s.

Obama was inexperienced in national politics at this point. His strategy was to make a high profile call for reform, then leave it up to the House to come up with a package of specific proposals that it could pass. The intent was to get a reform bill passed without staking too much White House credibility on the specifics, and not to give opponents a political punching bag before the details of the actual bill had been worked out. This was a miscalculation. The Republicans were able to attack straw men proposals like death panels, bolstered by the lack of political leadership from the White House. And by leaving the specifics up to the House, Obama got a bill that was a lot more ambitious and politically risky than he wanted (source:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/health/policy/21reconstruct.html). It was also some 70 billion dollars more expensive than he wanted (source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34753.html [politico.com]).

The House Democrats, for their part, based their proposals on Romney's Massachusetts plan, which in turn was based on Bob Dole's Republican alternative to Clinton's reform plans. While this would seem to be a politically safe move, the lack of leadership from the White House meant they ended up taking the political damage for a much more radical government takeover of health insurance, while at the same time alienating their base for *not* doing that.

In the end Republicans were able to gain a significant political victory in Congress and and advantageous position against Obama at the price of enacting their own health care plan from the mid 1990s.