By now, your mail man… excuse me, mail person, is probably cursing every politician and special interest group out flooding mailboxes with mailers telling you how to vote. Your email inbox is full, and “Robocalls”, those annoying automated phone calls that seem to always come in the middle of dinner, are imparting their recorded wisdom.

Talk show hosts are telling you exactly what you should do, and the people around you are constantly trying to get you to vote their way.

Congratulations, you just became a member of Congress.

Alright, maybe not really, but in a sense, you are going through one day of what goes on for voting members of congress every day of the year. Lobbyists, other politicians, talking heads, etc are constantly trying to sway the congressional members to vote their way.

The result is that they don’t always fully understand what they are voting for, or why. They go along with their influences and vote in accordance, completely forsaking thier duties and responsibilities.

The notorious health care bill was passed by a large amount of people who never read the bill. It is what is helping to spur the Tea Party movement, and energize conservative voters to get out this election and make their voice heard. Chants of “Read the Bill” have been heard at rallies around the nation in protest of the audacity of congress to vote on something they don’t understand…

… But have you done the same?

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Yesterday, at a candidate forum in Chicago held by the American Muslim Task Force, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) was asked point-blank about H.R. 3808 (the Interstate Recognition of Notarizatons Act).

Her answer reveals exactly why Americans are frustrated with Congress, and why incumbents like her are in trouble:

“I don’t know what it is.”

There’s really no excuse!

H.R. 3808 would make states recognize documents notarized in other states. It has drawn wide criticism, since many banks have recently admitted that they have been using people called “robo-signers” to sign hundreds of documents without reading them. That is partly why Bank of America and other banks have halted foreclosures in the past few days.

H.R. 3808 could theoretically allow abuses of the foreclosure process to happen more easily. Yet it passed unanimously and without debate in both the House and the Senate, because nobody bothered to read it or object to it.

Unlike the ObamaCare legislation, H.R. 3808 is not thousands of pages long. In fact, it is less than one page long.

Yet almost nobody, Republican or Democrat, bothered to examine it or to think about its possible effects.

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One thing our founding fathers could not foresee… was a nation governed by professional politicians who have a vested interest in getting reelected.  They probably envisioned a fellow serving a couple of hitches and then looking forward to getting back to the farm.” — Ronald Reagan

The energy of 1994 led to the Contract with America, and the huge Republican victory of that year.  It was a victory for Republicans, but was it a victory for America?

The Contract with America had an inherent flaw.  It was a political party bargaining with Americans:  give us power and this is what we will do for you.  The Freshmen 50 is different:  it is Americans telling the federal government what it will do.

We are citizen-candidates united on a platform of six simple and realistic reforms for our government:

• Apply the Law Equally: All laws that apply to all citizens also apply to Congress
• Term Limits: Limit terms in Congress to no more than 12 years in the House and Senate, respectively
• Enforce Congressional Ethics: Yearly tax and expense audits, former Congressmen and their staff cannot be lobbyists, allow the ethics committee to do their job
• Read the Bill: Prior to final vote, the entire bill must be read out loud on the floor of the House; if a representative is not present for the entire reading, he cannot vote
• Tax Reform: Repeal our current tax code in favor of one that taxes only once, at one rate, and require a 2/3-majority vote for any new tax
• Balance the Budget: Amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget

We are unique.

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The American people have had it with “business as usual” in Congress.  They are fed up with practices such as tucking special-interest provisions into bills behind closed doors, secretly changing bills without a vote, and passing bills no one has read.  This has happened for far too long, but never before has the need for reform been more apparent than in the past year under Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her Democratic majority.

Americans are demanding change in the way Congress works.  Recognizing this, I and other reform-minded congressional Republicans this week will put forth a new transparency initiative – a series of common-sense congressional reforms aimed at bringing some much-needed openness and accountability to the House.

In just 10 months, with help from the Obama White House, Speaker Pelosi’s Congress has taken business-as-usual to a devastating new extreme.  The American people have watched Congress rush through a massive “stimulus” spending bill no one read; a massive $410 billion omnibus spending bill loaded with thousands of un-scrutinized earmarks; and a new “cap and trade” national energy tax loaded with special-interest giveaways unveiled at 3:00 am on the morning before a vote.

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Whoever said, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” never went to Congress.

Sometime this year, perhaps very soon, both chambers in Congress likely will be asked to vote on a monumental healthcare bill — monumental in its scope, its cost, and the actual number of pages in the legislation.

And while many important questions about the final draft of the bill remain, here’s one that most Americans are shocked we even have to ask: “Will members of Congress be given enough time to read and understand the bill before casting a vote?”

The answer, based on prior behavior, is “probably not.”

Earlier this year, members, the public, and press were given 12 hours to review the 1,073-page long stimulus bill that cost future generations of Americans (since we’re borrowing just about everything at this point) $787 billion. Not a single member I talked to read it before the vote. I doubt Evelyn Wood could have even pulled it off.

The cap and trade bill, which would cost $846 billion and weighs in at 1,428 pages, was available for 16.5 hours before the House vote.

But this isn’t a partisan problem: under Republican rule in 2003, for example, the 852-page Medicare Part D bill was available for 29 hours before a vote was called on the $395 billion legislation.

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