Here's what we need to do -- monitor laws that are about to be implemented and how our tax dollars are being spent. Sound impossible? No, with the internet, monitoring our representatives and senators is VERY possible. The internet gives citizens their first true opportunity at participatory democracy.
When a 3000-page budget was sent to the Senate last year with less than 72 hours of time for staff to read through it in detail, we should not be surprised that items we didn't want slipped into law.
WE can help. When 3000 pages have to be read overnight, staffers spend bleary-eyed hours searching for problems, but if you divide 3000 among 600 of us, each of us will have to read only 5 pages! I can do that! Five pages in one night and I can e-mail a staff member that there is "something wrong here".
Go to
http://www.readthebill.org/ and support the bill to have ALL bills posted online for at least 72 hours before being voted on. Pay attention to the blogs.
Thomas E. Mann of the Brookings Institution said these efforts are important because lawmakers have increasingly abused the earmarking practice. Still, he said he doubts ordinary citizens would read through the bills. Rather, "it would be available for people with an interest one way or another to see what got put in."
We can prove Thomas Mann wrong -- we ORDINARY CITIZENS can watch bills being introduced.
What we will do is volunteer to monitor bills. A web page similar to DailyKos and MyDD can allow us to discuss problems that we may encounter in new bills. Because most of us do not have time to read an entire 3000-page bill, each of us can volunteer to read specified portions of each bill and report to staff members if something is suspicious.
Actually, this is what CRASHING THE GATE by Markos Moulitsas (DailyKos) and Jerome Armstrong (MyDD) is talking about -- taking the government to the grassroots.
The ideal way this can occur is to have a volunteer list so when a bill comes out, volunteers are notified via their e-mail. They then go to the readthebill web site or a designated web site with the bill(s) divided into numbered and lettered segments and posted online. To make sure all portions of the bills are read, each volunteer would ADOPT a segment and mark it "adopted" some way and by whom (screen name is fine). Once the segment has been read, the volunteer can either comment on the segment or mark it as acceptable.
If the segment is problematic, we would notify our representative's or senators' staff members that they need to look at that segment and make corrections. Reading and commenting or approving within the designated 72 hours is crucial. We MUST let our officials know BEFORE they vote that we have read the bill.
Please recommend to keep this diary before the public and vote in the poll.