Proposal for a 28th Amendment

[Caninelaw]

This was sent to me by a cousin...sounds like a good idea to me...

Big Hollywood Blog Archive The Brevity Act: Time for a 28th Amendment

Earlier this year, Congress passed a “Stimulus” Bill. It was 973 pages long. This past Friday, the House passed a “Climate Change” Bill. It was more than 1200 pages long.
This got me wondering: how long, exactly, is our Constitution? How many pages did it take our country’s founders to lay out the structure and functions of our Federal Government?
Easy to answer. I found the Constitution online and copied it into a Word document, in Times New Roman 12 point type. So how long is it?
Including the preamble, all signatures and all 27 amendments, it’s 20 pages.
Without the signatures and amendments, it’s 11 pages.
Think about that. The entire foundation of our country - the complete design for our entire government — is clearly explained in only 11 pages.
No single Amendment is a full page. Many are only a single sentence.
Yet the bill that was passed on June 26, 2009 by 219 of our elected representatives — people to whom we’ve entrusted our Constitution, men and women who have sworn an oath to uphold it - was more than 1200 pages long. That’s over 100 times longer than the U.S. Constitution! And not one member of Congress, NOT ONE, read the whole thing!
A word comes to my mind to describe this: “INSANE.”
I cannot believe that this type of legislation and legislative behavior is what the signers of our Constitution intended when they invented Congress.
Therefore, I am respectfully proposing a 28th Amendment to our Constitution. I call it the Brevity Act.
No law, bill, resolution or any act of Congress shall exceed 2000 words, including all footnotes, amendments and signatures. Congress shall not vote on any item longer than that. Each item requiring a vote shall be read aloud in its entirety in session to a majority of members. Those not in attendance may not vote on the item.
2000 words is about 5 single spaced pages in a 12 point Word document. If it’s longer than that, then it’s too complicated to be a single law or bill, so it must either be cut or turned into multiple bills, each requiring a separate vote.
Furthermore, a Brevity Act should be part of every State Constitution, County Charter and City Charter.
To those who would oppose this Act because it would require Legislatures to vote separately on every single item in the budget, I say, it’s about time!
And to all challengers to the 219 Congressional morons who voted to pass a bill which they never read, here’s your campaign speech:
My opponent voted for a Bill he/she never read. Only an idiot would do that. Would you walk into a voting booth with a blindfold on and just push some buttons? Or would you read and consider what you’re voting on before you vote? I promise I will not vote for anything I haven’t read in its entirety.
Let the debate begin!

[BelchFire]

Very good points. Now how do we get this on the ballot?

[trapperbr549]

Only an idiot would do that. Would you walk into a voting booth with a blindfold on and just push some buttons

Apparently a lot of people do.
By the way, count me in with the 28'th Amendment.

[BelchFire]

We need this amendment now, more than ever.......

SPIN METER: Legislation inflation grips GOP - Yahoo! News

[Buck-eye]

It unforntuantely will never happen since most everything in our country has been bastardized by lawyers who find any loophole possible to make money. The wording needs to be so damn precise these days. They would HATE to have a simple ammendment like the 2nd, becuase in the oppositions mind, the argument comes down to where the actual COMMA is in the damn thing. With every person in Congress basically being a lawyer at one time, the chances of this happening are about as good as them passing TORT reform, or instituting term limits on their own jobs.

[Barkoff]

Originally Posted by Caninelaw

This was sent to me by a cousin...sounds like a good idea to me...

Big Hollywood Blog Archive The Brevity Act: Time for a 28th Amendment

That is a very good point, however this was by design. After the framers put forth a final version Jefferson was then given the task of making it short in poignant.

He did a good job however if one is to read the first Amendment, before it was revised by Jefferson, one can clearly see how the 1st has been spun into something it wasn't intended to be.

[Sodhunter]

I love that idea, but as Barkoff stated, if they had known what the lawyers would do down the road they would have probably added a few pages to stop it. Used to be everyone knew what the intent of the law was and jurors just said thumbs up or thumbs down and all was good. Now we have the President of the United States lie'n through his teeth and trying to twist the meaning of the word "is". I would still be in favor of it though. I would rather have guilty people going free than Congress passing more stupid ass laws they do not even understand.

[castor]

20 pages or 200, what does it matter if nobody follows it?