Inside Politics

SHUT UP AND VOTE

Rep. John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, thinks it’s ludicrous to expect members of Congress to read legislation before voting.

“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’ ” Mr. Conyers said at a National Press Club luncheon last week.

“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?” he asked.

ODD LEGISLATION

“The fresh news about Washington - the White House and Congress - is that things are not going very well,” Pete Du Pont writes at www.opinionjournal.com.

“A new president in full command of public-policy matters is having problems, from health care to taxes to massive federal spending and now to the Waxman-Markey bill, one of the oddest and most far-reaching pieces of legislation advocated by the new administration,” Mr. Du Pont said.

“It passed the House a few weeks ago by a 219-212 vote - not much of a margin. Most interesting was the fact that of America’s 50 state delegations in the House, 28 voted no and 22 aye, and one quarter of the 219 majority votes came from New York and California. Most of America’s states and communities didn’t much like the bill.

“No wonder, for it would regulate many things - energy, wages, imported goods, corporations, states, cities, buildings and houses, snowmobiles, lawnmowers, light fixtures, candelabra base lamps and many others - while containing broad exemptions for regulation of agribusiness, ethanol and biofuels. The Waxman-Markey bill would be without question the biggest expansion of federal government control over our economy since the 1930s.

“The Heritage Foundation concludes it would reduce America’s real gross domestic product by $400 billion each year - a cumulative loss of $9.4 trillion by 2035 - leading to almost 2.5 million job losses, and raise inflation-adjusted electricity rates by 90 percent. For a household of four, it would cost on average $2,979 annually, and in 2035 the total family cost would be over $4,600 for everything, including power, food, supplies, gasoline and transportation.”

PALIN’S FAREWELL

“The fact that Sarah Palin gave her farewell speech at a picnic is probably a metaphor for everything we’ve come to know about the now-former Alaska governor since John McCain selected her as his running mate,” Matt Lewis writes at www.politicsdaily.com.

“Picnics, of course, are not the kind of thing that people in New York or Georgetown know much about. Well, they know about the ones where you take along some wine and cheese - but not where the whole town turns out to hear country music and eat fried chicken,” Mr. Lewis said.

“Most politicians wouldn’t have given their farewell address on a Sunday evening at such an event, and that’s why - for good or bad - Sarah Palin is not like most politicians. Ironically, for all the clamor that we want ‘non-politicians,’ the media expect a certain routine and protocol. Office holders mess with that at their peril.

“It’s also ironic that Palin chose to bow out at a picnic, because her time in the spotlight has been anything but a picnic.

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