In fairness to Rep. Johnson, I wouldn't have read the regulations either. There's only so much time in the day, and so much ground even the most hyper-efficient Congressman can cover. She's right.
She should be aware of the regulations in a general sense, but she has a paid staff, and reading the regulations and being prepared to respond to complaints and inquiries about them should be delegated to her staff.

I understand the point you're trying to make, Amy, but this attempt is a fail.

but she has a paid staff, and reading the regulations and being prepared to respond to complaints and inquiries about them should be delegated to her staff.

no, no, No NONONONONNO FUCKING NO.

We did not elect her mother fucking staff
We did not elect god damn mother fucking lobyists

If they cant do their mother fucking job and read the god damn bills we send them there to fucking READ and vote on then they shouldnt be there in the first place

What the fuck is wrong with you that you think its fine and fucking dandy that she doesnt bother to read the laws she passes that effect every last one of us?

As the article made explicitly clear in the first paragraph, the Congresswoman read the law, but not the regulations which sprang from the law, which are two different things.

Is the profanity really necessary to make your point?

Eddie Bernice Johnson lives in a gerrymandered district thus guaranteeing her re-election for as long as she wants the office. If you live in a district where the politician chooses her voters rather than the voters choosing their rep, you can expect an arrogant and cavalier attitude towards the laws Ms. Johnson expressed.

Plus Ms. Johnson survived a scandal. The Congressional Black Caucus allowed Ms Johnson to award 20+ of its scholarships which Ms Johnson awarded several to her grandchildren, nephews, children of her congressional aides, and others all which violated the anti-nepotism laws. How do people serving in Congress always get away with such behavior and why do the voters keep sending them back to Washington ?

Methinks she did not read the law either. Her knowledge level is such that she is only qualified in being told what to do by her betters.

Roadgeek: Is the profanity really necessary to make your point?

In his case, yes. Removing profanity from his vocabulary would effectively cut it in half.

"There's only so much time in the day, and so much ground even the most hyper-efficient Congressman can cover."

I would be interested in knowing the name of one hyper-efficient Congressman. Just one.

"I haven't had the time to do it."

Oh. Pray tell, what are you so busy doing? Some examples please.

I suggest the following: Pass a law that requires the sponsor of the bill to read out loud the entire bill that they are going to vote on. Oh, an anyone who wants to vote must sit through the entire reading.

"As the article made explicitly clear in the first paragraph, the Congresswoman read the law, but not the regulations which sprang from the law, which are two different things."

Roadgeek, isn't that part of the problem with Rep. Johnson and just about the entire Congress? Both Democrat and Republican.

Congress passes laws that enable czars, secretaries,and bureaucrats with regulatory power, and then there is no oversight.

She's really a disgrace. If that's not her job, what exactly does she do?

While reading 10,000+ pages of regulations on every bill that ever passes Congress is a bit much to expected of anyone, she needs to have an in-depth understanding of how the laws she passes are being implemented. How else can she know if a law needs to be amended or even scrapped?

From the article, I gather she not only doesn't have that understanding, she doesn't care to.

Or, to offer up the same attitude, as spoken by another complete waste of human flesh, "We have to pass the bill to know what's in it."

I don't honestly expect that our representatives have to read every word in every proposed bit of legislation (though it would still be a good idea).

I do, however, expect them to be able to do the following:

They must be able to clearly and intelligently articulate the specifics of what the proposed legislation is intended to address (also, they must provide evidence that this problem absolutely cannot be addressed at any less overarching level).

They must be able to clearly and intelligently articulate, in detail, how the proposed legislation will actually address those issues.

They must demonstrate that they understand any potential side effects of the legislation, and that they've done full due diligence to make sure that those side effects are not part of the final product. This would include any regulations that stem from the proposed legislation.

I would consider this to be the bare minimum amount of effort applied by our representatives.

Ideally, a legislative initiative or bill would be limited to a single item, and that item would stand or fall on its own merit.

Lots of people complain that such a scenario limits the ability to reach a compromise, and thusly, few of those single issue bills would pass (I don't actually have a problem with that scenario).

Mostly, when they say 'compromise', they're saying, "I'll vote for the legislative malware you want to put in the bill, if you'll vote for the malware I want."

I think we've had far too much of that already.

Some questions I'd like answered:
Why was this project outsourced?
Who wrote the specs and what were their qualifications?
Where are the BA's User acceptance Testplans, and did they sign off on the final product?
There are a lot more, and I'm sure none will be answered by "the most transparent admin in history ".

I just wish there had been an adult in the room to say "Hey, if this project is to get 50 mil folks coverage, why are we screwing with the other 250 mil that are already covered? "

Oh, right, I forgot, it's all about control.....

Johnson, like nearly all members of congress, simply does what her party leaders tell her to do.

A burger-flipping job requires more initiative.

"Removing profanity from his vocabulary would effectively cut it in half."

Ah. And you'd never use profanity. Ooops.

Still waiting to hear how the NPR calculator fares in a comparison between your existing health-care plan and the ACA.

I know it's easier to just disparage its accuracy, and say this about luj.

How about something meaningful? Hey, the Supreme Court okayed the ACA, so you should be righty-fine with it, so how you doing? How does it affect you?

Is the profanity necessary? Some times it is, in this case it is.

I swear to God I wish stupidity such as yours roadgeek, and that displayed by politicians, had MASS. Such monumentally MASSIVE stupidity such as yours would cause cars and dump trucks to tumble thru the air from miles away to slam into you putting an end to such stupidity before it could cause even more harm to society at large.

"Johnson, like nearly all members of congress, simply does what her party leaders tell her to do."

And this is the essence of the problem: most of the people in Congress are just there to be warm bodies for the parties' leadership groups. We've acquired one of the worst characteristics of parlimentary-style governments, which is that MC's (to coin an acronym) are expected to place party loyalty above their constitutiency. And leadership ensures this by gerrymandering and micro-dividing constitutiencies so as to disfranchise groups of dissenting voters. Part of the problem the GOP has right now is that some members are refusing to play their assigned roles. (Are there Democrats doing the same? Maybe there are and I'm not aware of it. After all, it's not like the media would tell us.)

the Congresswoman read the law, but not the regulations which sprang from the law, which are two different things.

If you break that law, or the regulations required to implement the law due to your ignorance of the 10K+ pages, is that an acceptable defense in the courts?

So if you're required to know and understand all 10K+ (is that with or without the 2.5K pages of the bill itself) or suffer the legal consequences of your ignorance, why does this congresscritter feel that it isn't their job?

Oh, right, I forgot: they exempted themselves from the law. Oh, and while she may claim to have actually read the law, you'll forgive me if I call bovine scatology on that claim.

"In his case, yes. Removing profanity from his vocabulary would effectively cut it in half."

Well, dear Patrick, it gave you the chance to point out a squirrel. The fact that luj was correct to call out the dude's fail was too much for your sensitive nature. Oh, and fuck off.

To tenderize luj's first post just a bit:

If there is a bill in Congress that is too long to read by the persons in charge of setting the laws and regulations which stem from it, then the fault lies with those who make such things so complex.

It is well within the capabilities of any person in the Capitol to vote down a bill for being too long.

We are in a horrendous jam because the ACA is too big, and it was passed by people who did not read it.

Print that out where you can see it, and apply the principle.

Do not try to tell me that passing laws with unknown content is ever a good idea.

"Is the profanity really necessary to make your point?" roadgeek

sheez, roadgeek, are you a 10year old in sunday school? People cuss when they are pissed off. The MORE pissed off, the MORE CUSSING.

can you imagine the deathlook that luj had when typing all that?

Rad may have mentioned this just now, but it bears repeating...

IF John Q. Public, who has gone to Washington to represent us, cannot read a whole law and hasn't a CLUE as to what is in it... they are FAILING to represent us.

So MAYBE they should write a more straightforward law, so that it is more easily understood.

Put another way: over HALF of congress is lawyers, and STILL they initially voted to not have any insurance themselves, and STILL they insist that the law will work correctly.

Ms. Johnson is a registered Nurse, and has a long illustrious career in the health field, including: "She served as Chief Psychiatric Nurse at the Dallas Veterans Administration Hospital (the first African American to hold that position), and entered politics after 16 years in that position".[2] ^ "Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson". The History Makers. Retrieved 15 May 2013 [From Wiki]

So... you would be right to think that she is a well educated person, and yet that doesn't make that 2000 page healthcare law any less of a dog's dinner.

She was hired to represent people and write laws... if she participates in law that is so complex she can't figure it out, she has to yell "STOP" and make it simpler.

Lord knows people like Nacy Pelosi, life long politicians with a poli/sci degree, won't... she didn't really care what was in it.

I was screaming at the computer and threw a couple coffee mugs into a wall.

Nothing pisses me off more than abject unrepentant stupidity, hell, its the only thing that pisses me off