Lawson for Congress

You must be kidding me.

I first started studying how Washington works when I was in medical training, back when HIPAA was being born. Remember HIPAA? The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act? As I watched Congress empower unelected bureaucrats and lobbyists to share my protected health information with anyone having a financial interest in my care, “You must be kidding me” became a regular refrain.

But then I discovered a much more serious medical problem in Washington. Despite the fact that Congress loves providing drugs for our senior citizens, even at risk of national bankruptcy, they have thus far failed to diagnose or treat their own illness: Legislative Attention Deficit Disorder, or LADD.

The most common symptom of LADD is failure to focus on a single topic when creating legislation. Instead, legislators become excited when reading legislation that is likely to pass. As a result of this excitement, their minds begin wandering to the grab bag of promises they have made to special interests. In the final stages, this inability to concentrate on the legislation’s original topic culminates in spasmodic and capricious additions and amendments that are completely unrelated, dangerous, and costly.

Today’s example is typical: Senator Dianne Feinstein added an amnesty provision for up to 1.35 million illegal agricultural workers to an Iraq supplemental appropriations bill:

At today’s markup of the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee committed an outrageous act of disrespect for our men and women in uniform and to the citizens of this country by adopting an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that gives amnesty to illegal-alien agricultural workers. The copy of the amendment obtained by NumbersUSA indicates a maximum of 1.35 million illegal aliens, plus their families, could obtain “emergency agricultural worker status” for a five-year period. However, the amendment also provides for an adjustment of status, which paves the way for permanent legalization.

You must be kidding me.

Folks, this is just plain bad government. Unfortunately, it’s up to you to fight back. Regardless of your stance on the Iraq war or immigration, is it appropriate for legislators to hijack legislation in this fashion? Shouldn’t we insist that our legislators embrace common sense, and limit legislation to one subject at a time so votes can accurately reflect the opinions of our elected representatives?

Please, help restore common sense to Washington. I have three requests:

1. Visit NumbersUSA to learn more about this affront to good government, and how to contact your Senators today to fight this back-door attempt at amnesty for illegal immigrants. As NumbersUSA notes, there is no need for amnesty for agricultural workers — there already is an H-2A foreign agricultural worker program that provides growers with unlimited temporary workers.
2. To address the broader problem of LADD, learn about the One Subject at a Time Act, which requires Congress to limit legislation to a single subject. I support the One Subject at a Time Act, along with the Enumerated Powers Act, Read the Bills Act, and Write the Laws Act, as nonpartisan “good government” reforms that would drastically improve our legislative honesty and effectiveness.
3. Donate today to our Congressional campaign. In the week since the primary, I have been focused almost entirely on fundraising. We are preparing a large, targeted mailing and need your immediate help today!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 10:48 pm and is filed under immigration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.