358

A Republican congressman admitted to his constituents that he wasn’t familiar with part of the massive tax-and-spending cut legislation he voted for last week.

At a raucous town hall meeting in Seward, Nebraska, a constituent asked Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb.) about a part of the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” aimed at preventing federal courts from blocking power grabs by the Trump administration.

“I am not going to hide the truth. This provision was unknown to me when I voted for that bill, and when I found out that provision was in the bill, I immediately reached out to my Senate counterparts and told them of my concern,” Flood said.

top 23 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 154 points 1 week ago

these are the same morons that block rules like 'bills must be read in their entirety by congressman before they can vote on it'...

you know, their fucking jobs.

reminder: these useless fucks get universal healthcare and are legally allowed to insider trade the stock market.

[-] RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

These bills are sometimes gigantic and no congressperson could possibly read the entire bill for everything they vote on. They are supposed to have people who read the bills and give them a summary.

Affordable Care Act is 1,100 pages. And then you have to remember that other healthcare proposals that got voted down were also similar lengths.

[-] Zombie@feddit.uk 38 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

They're representative politicians in a supposed representative democracy.

The word representative means they are there in place of "the people" because you can't expect everyone to read and fully understand everything.

That is therefore the politician's job. They are not supposed to have people to summarise the bill for them. They are meant to understand it and determine whether to vote yes or no based on the needs and requirements of their constituents.

If the bill is too long or complex then they should vote no until they can understand the whole thing.

In the opposite of The Simpsons Governator, they are meant to read, not to lead!

[-] AngrySquirrel@lemm.ee 31 points 1 week ago

The ridiculous length of most of these bills now is a major part of the problem. They are usually written on K St by lobbying firms and think tanks, then handed to favorable Congress critters to be introduced.

[-] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago

They are usually written on K St by lobbying firms and think tanks, then handed to favorable Congress critters to be introduced.

And that's not a new phenomenon. It had been happening since Reagan (and probably before that)

The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973. It was probably still happening before that, though.

[-] p3n@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago

Ya, maybe bills shouldn't be 1000+ pages so that people can actually know what is in them.

This is a concept that somehow software developers seem to grasp, but lawmakers don't?

Try submitting a pull request with 100,000 lines of code to the Linux kernel, or any other serious project. Nobody is going to review and accept it because that is a rediculous amount of code to change with a single PR. How much more important is a federal law than a software project? Yet one will have maintainers pour over it line by line while the other the "maintainers" don't even read.

[-] Demdaru@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Isn't their length the point? Maybe half of that is about the topic, rest is lobbying effort from what I heard

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 week ago

It's intentional.

Literally every aspect of our democracy has been gamed.

[-] littlewonder@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Maybe they're so big because no one has been made to read the entire thing, and thus, been irritated enough to shorten their own bills.

[-] ExtantHuman@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago

Technically, they now get their healthcare off the ACA exchange. This change occurred in 2008

[-] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Their job is to get money for the party and to vote for what the party tells them to vote for

[-] untakenusername@sh.itjust.works 50 points 1 week ago

can someone go tell the Nebraskans to primary this guy out? he seems kinda dumb

[-] kescusay@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago

He's a Republican in Nebraska. Being kinda dumb is mandatory for that variety of politician.

[-] dinren@discuss.online 15 points 1 week ago

Nebraska votes for whatever isn’t blue. Whatever says “babies and Jesus” and “I promise there is no lead in your water” and “you aren’t dumb”

[-] Stern@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

“I promise there is no lead in your water”

At this point I think they're promising to get rid of fluoride, not lead.

[-] wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago

It's not easy but we could build a water softener that replaces flouride in the water with lead. I bet they'd fucking love that. Slap a trump hat on it and charge $2k per install. MADE IN AMERICA, BABY!

[-] FistingEnthusiast@lemmynsfw.com 35 points 1 week ago

Even if they know that they're voting against the interests of their constituents, it won't change a thing

They have to bend their knee to Trump, no matter what

The same stupid constituents who are moaning now would also be complaining if he voted against the bill

[-] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

What's that site that gives you the summary to start from or read and the numbers for your representatives? Probably time to link it again.

[-] tfm@europe.pub 7 points 1 week ago

It looks like he was bathing with RFJ Jr.

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

You had one job. That you didn't.

He does not have to know every word of every bill. He does not have to read it, but then he need some serious reliable people who read it for him and tell him what is in there, especially when it comes to uboots in the law or technicalities. But he bears the total responsibility for what he voted for, and cannot claim ignorance.

this post was submitted on 29 May 2025
358 points (99.4% liked)

politics

23951 readers
2158 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS