Wouldn't it at least be Professional Courtesy

[No Mandate Here.]

for stealth legislators to inform the name sponsors of bills that they are inserting something like the tax return provision?

How can these people say they are governing if they don't have any idea what they are voting on?

I don't feel that they represent me, when they can't even represent themselves.

Josh Marshall has parts of a Boston Globe article where they say that:

"Congressional conference committees, charged with reconciling differences between House- and Senate-passed versions of the same legislation, have become dramatically more powerful in shaping bills. The panels, made up of a small group of lawmakers appointed by leaders in both parties, added a record 3,407 "pork barrel" projects to appropriations bills for this year's federal budget, items that were never debated or voted on beforehand by the House and Senate and whose congressional patrons are kept secret. This compares to just 47 projects added in conference committee in 1994, the last year of Democratic control."

<http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/>

This is way out of control, in my eye.

[tavalon]

1. What in the world

has given you the idea that these thugs are either professional or courteous?

[Skidmore]

2. It would be an even more novel idea if they would inform

the constituents of what they are including in a bill. You know, perhaps it's time to promote the notion that an appropriations bill must be approved by a certain date in the legislative calendar and cannot be left until the last possible moment.

[Inland]

3. I suspect the legislators don't know what is going in the bills, either

thanks to the pubbies' wholesale delegation of drafting to lobbyists.