Bill Signed In 2005 Not The One Passed By Congress
This is the second time that I'm aware of where there are allegations of language being "slipped into" a bill while Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. The first was when language came out of conference committee that had not appeared in either the House or Senate versions, language that changed how US Attorneys are appointed.
The AP story traces a $10 million earmark for a Florida transportation project, the "Coconut Road Interchange."
The original highway bill, when it was approved by the House and Senate, included $10 million for improvements for I-75 in southwest Florida, one of more than 6,000 earmarks in the bill. But the version of the bill that was sent to the president for his signature redirected that money to the Coconut Rd. Interchange in Lee County...
Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, in 2005 the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, has previously said that he backed the earmark in at the request of community residents. "I think it's the right thing for the state of Florida, and you know, right now, they're supportive of it," he said in an interview this week with the Associated Press... Young has not been charged with any wrongdoing, although he has been linked to a Florida developer who held a fundraiser for Young in 2005 and stood to benefit from the earmark.
Now Congress has to decide what to do about the "what we passed isn't what was signed" bill. Should it investigate itself or turn the matter over to the Justice Department? Just as important: how do we know that this hasn't happened before? And how does Congress plan on making sure it doesn't happen again?
Related:
Everything But The Squeal: The 2005 Transportation Bill
On Bi-Partisan Vote, Senate Strips 2006 Patriot Act Change
Comments
Hi Kathy,
Isn’t there a bipartisan control on what gets sent to the signature? And isn’t it a felony to change it sneakily (especially with personal gain like in this case). Believe me, if this would happen in Europe, it would be a major scandal with criminal trial and potentially political changes (like making a government fall). Needless to say that the carrier of such a politician would be over (at least for a long time). What’s going on in the USA? Is it so bad that all ethical values have deserted politics? I know it never was a place for saints, but this kind of thing is pure corruption. Are the USA becoming more and more of a banana republic?
Hi, Alphast:
I truly have no answers for you. I don’t know how this could happen “accidentally” — and yes, I believe I read that it would be a felony. Why is Don Young getting a free pass from the media? From his fellow Republicans?
The fact that the story is basically a “non-story” as far as major media is concerned is another problem. :-/
Hi Kathy,
And I actually think this is the true base of the American problem in general. As Alexis de Tocqueville was mentioning in “La Démocratie en Amérique” (two centuries ago), the US flavor of democracy is based not so much on its institutions (the Constitution and the law corpus) than on the ability of this country to generate counter powers, checks and balances and other independant assessments. Unfortunately, and I don’t know exactly how or why, it seems that in the recent decades the USA has progressively lost these. And especially, it has lost its strongest asset: a strong, critical, educated and free press. Even relatively independant media such as CNN fail to ask the real questions, to question the main issues. And this has, I am afraid, nothing to do with partisanship, neither even the War on Terror TM. It is older and more profound, and I honestly don’t know the reasons or the cause, but it is extraordinarily frightening for the USA’s old allies in Europe. We see this happening, helplessly. And we see the strongest power on the planet, once a friendly country, close on itself, become an alienated bully.
Some folks (count me in this bunch) believe that media consolidation has led to our current blindfolded media.
“News” as “public service” seems to have gone the way of the horse & buggy since the 80s, the days of glorified greed.
We need a critical and educated populace, one that understands civics and media literacy. we’re missing that, too. Yeah, call me elitist, I’m ok with that.
I wonder if critics in early days (think Walter Lippmann) were as pessimistic as many of us today?
Oh, I’ve discovered a bit more about the process required to get the bill changed between votes and signature. Rep Young may have initiated it, but he could not have done it alone.
I completely agree here. True democracy can work only with a reasonably politically educated people (and by politically educated, I don’t mean on a partisan level but more in terms of general knowledge, information, economics and international affairs literacy). And I don’t consider this elitist in any way. It is a basic and strict minimum. One, I have to say, which is not always met either on this side of the ocean. Though I suspect our educational system is far better than yours in this prospect (just as it is admittedly a bit inferior for sciences and maths).