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Originally Posted by FreeFromContract
What a bunch of double-talk bullcrap. In the first paragraph you state it's SOP and then in the second you say actual start-to-finish reading would prevent virtually any business. So does it happen or doesn't it?
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No, the actual reading start-to-finish doesn't happen anymore (at least not for the last 60+ years), but a "reading" is called for in the assembly's rules or the law providing for the assembly's actions. However, the requirement of a "reading" is satisfied if copies are available to be read individually and the majority of members are willing to dispense with the oral reading from the Chair.
And yes a lot of bills, especially appropriations have last minute changes. Each year the first copy available of the big Congressional budget bill is a photocopy of something marked up with handwritten additions, typescript pages, and the like. The whole thing isn't set into type until after passage, sometimes by weeks and sometimes requiring page numbers with hyphenated or decimal numbers. Do you think a reading aloud would be effective? The whole bill would take more than an hour to read, and who would sit around listening attentively.
