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Proposal:
A legislature shall not vote on any proposal without providing adequate time for all legislators to review the proposal.
Legislators should have at least five days to review a first draft with one additional day of review for every 500 words in the first draft.
Legislators shall have at least two days to review any subsequent draft. When changes are highlighted in the subsequent draft and less than 10% of the draft has changed, legislators shall be provided with one additional day of review for every 7,500 words in the subsequent draft. When changes are not highlighted in the subsequent draft or when more than 10% of the draft has changed compared to the prior draft, legislators shall be provided one additional day of review for every 500 in the subsequent draft.
During an emergency declared by the executive branch, legislators shall be provided with at least 2 hours to review a proposal of up to 250 words.
During an emergency declared by the executive branch, legislators shall be provided with at least 4 hours to review a proposal of up to 500 words.
The legislature shall not review proposals longer than 500 words using emergency procedures.
Intent:
To ensure that legislators have adequate time to read and understand and consider any proposal before voting on it, while facilitating quick action by the legislature in times of emergency.
Discussion:
When a new law or change to existing law is proposed in the legislature, regardless of the procedural mechanism used to bring the proposal for discussion or vote, legislators must be provided with adequate time to read and understand and consider the proposal before voting on it.
The mandatory review time prevents hustlers from introducing lengthy last-minute legislation and demanding that legislators vote on it without reading or understanding its content.
Since adequate time is given to review the first draft of a law, legislators require less time to review subsequent drafts unless there are significant changes (more than 10% of the draft has changed) or the changes are unknown — if the subsequent draft does not indicate which portions have changed, legislators must read the entire draft as if it were a first draft.
This proposal does not prevent the legislature from acting quickly in case of emergencies. If there is a clear need for something and it can be stated concisely in 500 words or less, the legislature could vote on it the same day. This limit ensures that emergency proposals are brief and to the point and don’t include unrelated items.
The legislature makes its own rules so to ensure that this important rule is permanent, it must be adopted as a constitutional amendment.
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