There is a time bomb ticking in the House of Representatives. It is complicated but very important, so here goes.
Thousands of bills are introduced in each Congress. Only a handful become law. A substantial percentage of them are introduced by legislators who don't really believe in them and don't even want them to be passed. Hundreds of bills are introduced, for example, to reduce taxes or increase benefits for one group or another. They are introduced knowing that the Ways and Means Committee, to which tax bills are referred for consideration and which has the unrewarding job of being responsible rather than popular, will never consider them, let alone pass them.This allows your congressman to write to you saying that he has introduced legislation to accomplish exactly what you want and will make every effort to see that the bill you want becomes law. He won't.
Every effort would include filing an obscure piece of paper called a "discharge petition." When a committee won't consider a bill, a congressman can file a petition at the clerk's desk that says that the committee bottling up the legislation should be discharged from considering it and the legislation should be brought to the floor for a vote. If the sponsor can get a majority to sign his petition, he can force an immediate vote on his bill.
Discharge petitions have been used to force votes on such politically passionate issues as flag burning and a balanced budget constitutional amendment. The leadership - usually, but not always, the leadership of both parties - hates discharge petitions because they allow the passions of the moment to force votes on very controversial matters the leaders would rather avoid. The petitions take control away from the leadership and from committees that have studied the issues for years.
The leadership has one thing going for it. Discharge petitions always have been secret. If a member signs one, he or she is not supposed to see the names of anyone else who has signed. If the member does see other names, he or she is not supposed to talk about it. If too many signatures get put on a discharge petition, the speaker or the majority or the minority leader can put the arm on members to take their names off. Some do.
Here is the time bomb.
Rep. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., has introduced legislation to remove the secrecy from discharge petitions. Not only has he filed a discharge petition to make the House vote on his bill, he almost has violated the rule that the signatures on discharge petitions be secret. He has published a list of those who have not signed his discharge petition.
The conservative establishment has taken up his cause with fervent admiration. Ross Perot is for it; the Wall Street Journal published the list of those who had not signed. Rush Limbaugh has taken up the cause. Frightened freshmen are running for cover: Rep. Karen Thurman, D-Fla., interrupted her vacation to fax Inhofe that she was eager to sign his discharge petition.
So what happens if the movement succeeds and discharge petitions are made public? On the good side, the hypocrisy through which members of Congress can pretend to be on one side of an issue and then act to prevent a vote on it would be ended.
The good is probably outweighed by the bad. Constituents would demand that any bill introduced on their behalf be accompanied by a discharge petition. The thousand popular bills introduced to raise spending on pet programs would get passed. The thousand popular bills to cut taxes would get passed.
The nation and Congress have stumbled along fairly well for a couple of hundred years under the old system. If and when the Republicans get to run Congress again, they would change direction 180 degrees in a minute. Better the current sorry hypocrisy than a leaderless, chaotic demagoguery, passing thousands of new, contradictory and irresponsible laws with every passing popular whim.