Read the bill? Takes time

So somebody hands you a copy of “War and Peace” one evening and then comes back the next morning and asks you what you thought about it.

Not the first 10 pages.

Not the first chapter.

The whole, thick-as-a-metro-phone-directory, book.

Your answer, almost certainly, is something along the lines of “I’m not sure yet.”

This is an acceptable answer regarding a novel written 140 years ago.

It is an absolutely wretched answer when it comes to legislation under consideration in Congress.

Yet that “War and Peace” analogy pretty accurately describes the demands we’re putting on the people we elect to make our laws.

In February, for instance, lawmakers voted on the $747 billion stimulus bill just 12 hours after the 1,073-page document was delivered to them (by forklift, presumably).

This ridiculous situation is not limited to Democratic administrations, either.

In 2003, when George W. Bush was president, the House had 29 hours to review the 852-page bill that spent $395 billion on prescription benefits under Medicare.

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., thinks that schedule is overly ambitious.

He is, of course, right.

We support the proposal, spearheaded by Walden and Democratic Congressman Brian Baird of Washington, to require all bills to be posted online for at least 72 hours before debate begins in the House of Representatives.

Baird introduced House Resolution 554 on June 17, but it’s been languishing since then.

To jumpstart debate on the resolution, Walden and Baird are trying to force a vote by convincing more than half of the House members to sign a “discharge petition.”

Although the last successful discharge petition was in 2002, the Baird/Walden resolution deserves to be voted on as soon as possible.

It’s that rarest of things in the nation’s capital: A simple and effective solution to a serious problem.

Equally unusual is the degree to which Americans, normally a rather bristly bunch, agree on the necessity of giving lawmakers, and the public, time to give bills at least a cursory read.

A recent Zogby poll showed that 91 percent of those surveyed agree that non-emergency legislation should be posted on the Internet at least three days before it’s voted on.

Republicans support the Baird/Walden resolution at a 96.1 percent clip, Independents at 94.1 percent, and Democrats at 83.3 percent.

A common chant among people attending lawmakers’ town hall meetings on the healthcare issue this August was “read the bill.”

That’s sound advice.

And the Baird/Walden resolution makes it possible for our representatives to heed it.

No speed-reading skills required.