Publisher: The Reporter

Date: 7 July 09

Having just celebrated our 233rd year of independence, it is only fitting that we reflect for a moment upon the hard work of our Founding Fathers.

If we were to broadly sum up the key differences between our Founding Fathers and today's politicians, what would we say?

Our Founding Fathers worked day in and day out for weeks to form the Constitution of the United States. They fought, bickered, theorized, examined history and discussed the situation in detail. After weeks of debate, they came up with a document a few pages in length - our Constitution.

This document has stood the test of time. It was so carefully and well- written that other nations have used it as a basis for their constitutions.

For today's politicians, a 900-page bill can have 300 pages added to it in the middle of the night and be passed by the House hours later. A cell phone law can get through legislators who neglect to make text- messaging illegal. How could 120 legislators plus all of their staff members, legislative analysts and consultants miss something so obvious? Of course, the cell phone law doesn't make much sense in the first place, as almost everyone drives with only one hand on the wheel anyway.

The examples of political malpractice are almost limitless.

So, what is the difference between today's politicians and our Founding Fathers?

Our Founding Fathers took the time to do the job right.

For the most part, no one is going to read a bill hundreds of pages long, except for those who stand to profit from its use.

Regardless of who put it together, a bill that long, compiled in a matter of days, is going to have major problems. It's going to necessitate more laws to fix the problems it causes.

The way to turn this around is to get today's politicians to do what our Founding Fathers did. We need to make our politicians take the time to do the job right.But it is impossible to do the job right if few to none of our legislators are reading the bills.

A major step in the right direction would be to require legislators to read a bill before they are allowed to vote in favor of it. That's what the Honor in Office Act would do.

Most of our legislators came into office to do the right thing. Because of numerous factors, many of them have lost their way.

We need to give the newly elected and the honest legislators a tool by which they can defend themselves against peer pressure and the unscrupulous. We need a tool by which we can start to defend ourselves against dishonest politicians.

The Honor in Office Act can help keep our legislators in line. Go to www.honorinoffice.org/measure.php and read about it for yourself.