George Takei  🏳️‍🌈🖖🏽Jun 4, 2025
Full transparency, we prefer leaders who actually read the bill before voting on it.
Show threadTom Bortels

@georgetakei

I hate to seemingly defend her - but the bill was over 1000 pages. I bet 20 people actually read it - the rest read summaries from their assistant who used an AI and lied about it.

The only difference here is she was dumb enough to admit it. I kinda applaud any hint of honesty in politics, it's so rare. Dumb but honest is a step up.

The real issue is rushing passage of giant bills. Part of me says omnibus-type bills should be forbidden - if you have 200 different bits of legislation - pass 200 laws. Yes that might slow things down - that's a feature.

Jun 4, 2025 at 5:14pmWeb
Show threadThe Squeakaphelagic ZoneJun 4, 2025
@tbortels @georgetakei yeah but like, her job is to read it. 1000 pages yeah but she gets a six figure salary, she could at least actually, I don't know, work or something.
Show threadTom BortelsJun 4, 2025

@Squika @georgetakei

I understand. But if you want to call anyone out on this - fair's fair, you gotta call them all out, or at least the ones who voted for it.

We can and should rightly be mad at anyone, on either side, who votes yes on a bill they couldn't be bothered to read. At 1,116 pages (I looked it up) - that's 95% of them...

This all happened post 9-11 with the Patriot act - which was only 352 pages, less than a third the size of this. Signed in a panic, and we paid for that for years, with legislators showing surprise at some of the things in it after the fact. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

Show threadCourtney (moved to dads.cool)Jun 4, 2025
@tbortels @georgetakei yeah this was my impression as well -- the real naivete is thinking any lawmakers are reading bills before they vote on them. Most bills are written by lobbying groups, are enormous, and there's no way for politicians to read them and do any other part of their job. That's why they have staffers read and summarize. I appreciate that she didn't double down, tbh.