The Stimulus Bill, formally known as American Investment and Recovery Act of 2009, is 1,1000 pages long. It was made available in its final form on February 12 at 10:45pm. About 13 hours later, the report was brought up for consideration. At one point, House Minority Leader John Boehner dropped all 1,100 pages on the floor loudly and said,
“..I don’t know how you could read 1,100 pages between midnight and now. Not one Member has read this.”
Soon after, the House voted to approve the largest piece of spending legislation in history.
Yesterday, House Resolution 554 was introduced by Reps. Baird and Culberson. It would require that all non-emergency legislation be posted online, in its final form, 72 hours before consideration. Seems reasonable.
The Sunlight Foundation has been promoting this bill for several months on their site readthebill.org. The Citizen Century Institute runs the site whycongresscantread.com, also promoting it.