II
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. 55
To preserve the constitutional authority of Congress and ensure accountability
and transparency in legislation.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
JANUARY9, 2025
Mr. P
AULintroduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to
the Committee on Rules and Administration
A BILL
To preserve the constitutional authority of Congress and
ensure accountability and transparency in legislation.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Read the Bills Act’’. 4
SEC. 2. CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY STATEMENT. 5
(a) I
NGENERAL.—This Act is enacted pursuant to 6
the power conferred by the Constitution of the United 7
States upon each House of Congress by— 8
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(1) article I, section 5, clauses 2 and 3 to deter-1
mine the rules and keep a journal of its proceedings, 2
respectively; 3
(2) article I, section 7, clause 2 to ensure that 4
bills that become law have been actually passed by, 5
not just passed through, each House of Congress; 6
and 7
(3) article I, section 8, clause 18, which author-8
izes Congress to make all laws that are necessary 9
and proper for carrying into execution the rules of 10
each House of Congress. 11
(b) S
TANDINGPROVISION.—The provision of this Act 12
under which any person who is aggrieved by the enforce-13
ment of any law enacted either in violation of the rules 14
of proceedings of either House of Congress, or by the sus-15
pension of the rules, as prescribed herein, shall have 16
standing in a court of law, is enacted pursuant to article 17
III, section 2 of the Constitution of the United States. 18
SEC. 3. FINDINGS. 19
Congress finds the following: 20
(1) The Constitution of the United States vests 21
all legislative powers granted therein in Congress. 22
(2) Each Member of Congress is elected by the 23
people to whom the Member is accountable, and 24
Members must represent the people of their respec-25
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tive State or District in exercising their legislative 1
powers. 2
(3) Establishing a Government of enumerated 3
powers, article I, section 1 of the Constitution of the 4
United States obliges Congress to exercise only those 5
legislative powers provided for in the Constitution of 6
the United States, and article VI of the Constitution 7
of the United States requires that each Member of 8
Congress be bound by oath or affirmation to support 9
the Constitution of the United States by enacting 10
only those laws, and making only those resolutions, 11
that are pursuant to the Constitution of the United 12
States and not prohibited thereby. 13
(4) To ensure that Congress is politically and 14
legally accountable to the people, article I, section 5 15
of the Constitution of the United States requires 16
each House of Congress to keep a journal of its pro-17
ceedings and from time to time publish the same. 18
(5) To ensure that no legislation is passed with-19
out effective representation of the interests of the 20
people by the elected Members of Congress, article 21
I, section 7 of the Constitution of the United States 22
provides that only a bill ‘‘which shall have passed 23
the House of Representatives and the Senate,’’ and 24
not vetoed by the President, shall ‘‘become a law’’. 25
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(6) According to section I of the Manual of 1
Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of 2
the United States, written by Thomas Jefferson in 3
1801 (referred to in this section as ‘‘Jefferson’s 4
Manual’’), ‘‘nothing tended more to throw power 5
into the hands of administration and those who 6
acted with the majority . . . than a neglect of, or 7
departure from, the rules of proceeding [which] op-8
erated as a check and control of the actions of the 9
majority [and] a shelter and protection to the minor-10
ity’’. 11
(7) According to sections XXII and XL of Jef-12
ferson’s Manual, it was the rule of the Senate that 13
every bill receive 3 readings, 2 full readings by the 14
Clerk of the Senate, and a third reading of the title 15
of the bill only, because ‘‘every Member of the Sen-16
ate had a printed copy [of the bill] in his hand.’’. 17
(8) According to sections XXIV, XXV, and XL 18
of Jefferson’s Manual, it was the rule of the House 19
of Representatives, following the parliamentary pro-20
cedure of the English House of Commons, that every 21
bill receive 2 full readings by the Clerk of the House 22
of Representatives, and a reading of the whole con-23
tents of the bill verbatim by the Speaker of the 24
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House of Representatives before the House of Rep-1
resentatives voted on the bill. 2
(9) Under the current rules of the Senate, the 3
Senate has departed from its original practice of a 4
full first and second reading of each bill, and of en-5
suring that each Senator has a printed or other ver-6
batim copy of each bill before passage thereof, hav-7
ing by rule XIV of the Standing Rules of the Senate 8
limited each reading of a bill to the reading of the 9
title of the bill only, unless the Senate in any case 10
shall otherwise order. 11
(10) Under the current rules of the House of 12
Representatives, the House of Representatives has 13
by rule XVI (8) and rule XVIII (5) embraced its 14
original practice of full first and second readings of 15
each bill, but has regularly departed from this prac-16
tice by unanimous consent of the House of Rep-17
resentatives, and has dispensed altogether its origi-18
nal practice of a verbatim third reading of each bill 19
before passage, limiting such third reading to the 20
reading of the title only, including the reading of the 21
title only even when Members of the House of Rep-22
resentatives have no printed or other verbatim copy 23
of the bill before passage. 24
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(11) Although section 106 of title 1, United 1
States Code, requires a bill to be made available in 2
written form to each Member of Congress before 3
final passage, Congress has by statute conferred 4
upon itself the power, during the last 6 days of a 5
session of Congress, by concurrent resolution, to 6
vote for passage of a bill that is not in written form 7
at the time of final passage. 8
(12) As a direct consequence of the departure 9
of the Senate and the House of Representatives 10
from the salutary practice of full, verbatim readings 11
of each bill before final passage, and further, as a 12
direct consequence of Congress, by concurrent reso-13
lution and otherwise, having permitted certain ap-14
propriation, budget, and regulatory bills to be en-15
acted into law without such bills being printed and 16
presented to Congress in written form prior to final 17
passage, Congress has— 18
(A) imposed upon the people of the United 19
States excessively long bills, largely written by 20
an unelected bureaucracy, resulting in generally 21
incomprehensible, cumbersome, oppressive, and 22
burdensome laws, containing hidden provisions 23
for special interests; 24
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(B) deprived the people of the United 1
States and their elected Senators and Members 2
of a full and fair opportunity to examine the 3
text of bills, and all amendments thereto, prior 4
to passage; 5
(C) undermined the confidence of the peo-6
ple of the United States as a result of its fail-7
ure to provide adequate notice to the people be-8
fore a vote is taken on the bills and amend-9
ments thereto; and 10
(D) called into question the integrity and 11
reliability of the legislative processes in both 12
Houses of Congress by its failure to ensure that 13
each Senator and each Member of the House of 14
Representatives has, prior to passage, either lis-15
tened attentively to the reading of the full text 16
of each bill, and amendments thereto, or has 17
personally read the text thereof. 18
(13) Federal law currently sets forth various re-19
quirements relating to the form of bills and resolu-20
tions, and the procedure for enacting laws, includ-21
ing— 22
(A) the form of the enacting clause of all 23
Acts of Congress (section 101 of title 1, United 24
States Code); 25
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(B) the form of the resolving clause of all 1
joint resolutions (section 102 of title 1, United 2
States Code); 3
(C) a limitation on the use of enacting or 4
resolving words (section 103 of title 1, United 5
States Code); 6
(D) the requirement regarding the num-7
bering of sections and the requirement that 8
each contain a single proposition (section 104 9
of title 1, United States Code); 10
(E) the style and title for all bills making 11
appropriations (section 105 of title 1, United 12
States Code); and 13
(F) the process by which each bill or joint 14
resolution is handled after passage (section 106 15
of title 1, United States Code). 16
SEC. 4. TEXT OF BILL OR RESOLUTION TO SPECIFY ITS 17
CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY, CURRENT 18
LAW. 19
Chapter 2 of title 1, United States Code, is amended 20
by inserting after section 105 the following: 21
‘‘§ 105a. Text of bill or resolution to specify its con-22
stitutional authority 23
‘‘(a) R
EQUIREMENT.— 24
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‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Any bill or resolution intro-1
duced in either House of Congress shall contain a 2
provision citing the specific powers granted to Con-3
gress in the Constitution of the United States to 4
enact the proposed bill or resolution, including all 5
the provisions thereof. 6
‘‘(2) F
AILURE TO COMPLY.—Any bill or resolu-7
tion that does not comply with paragraph (1) shall 8
not be accepted by the Clerk of the House of Rep-9
resentatives or the Secretary of the Senate. 10
‘‘(b) F
LOORCONSIDERATION.— 11
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—The requirements of sub-12
section (a)(1) shall apply to any bill or resolution 13
presented for consideration on the floor of either 14
House of Congress, including a bill or resolution re-15
ported from a committee of either House of Con-16
gress, produced by conference between the 2 Houses 17
of Congress, or offered as a manager’s amendment. 18
‘‘(2) F
AILURE TO COMPLY.—Any bill or resolu-19
tion that does not comply with paragraph (1) shall 20
not be submitted for a vote on final passage. 21
‘‘(c) N
OWAIVER ORMODIFICATION.—Neither House 22
of Congress, nor Congress jointly, by concurrent resolu-23
tion, unanimous consent, or any other order, resolution, 24
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vote, or other means, may dispense with, or otherwise 1
waive or modify, the requirements under this section. 2
‘‘§ 105b. Text of bill or resolution to set forth current 3
law 4
‘‘(a) R
EQUIREMENT.— 5
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—Any bill or resolution intro-6
duced in either House of Congress that is intended 7
to amend or modify the effect of, or would have the 8
effect of amending or modifying the effect of, any 9
current provision of law, including the expiration 10
date of any law, shall set forth— 11
‘‘(A) the current version of the entire sec-12
tion of the current law that the bill or resolu-13
tion proposes to amend, verbatim; 14
‘‘(B) the amendments proposed in the bill 15
or resolution; and 16
‘‘(C) the section of law as it would read as 17
modified by the amendments proposed, except 18
that this subparagraph shall not apply to any 19
bill or resolution that would strike the text of 20
an entire section of a law. 21
‘‘(2) F
AILURE TO COMPLY.—Any bill or resolu-22
tion that does not comply with paragraph (1) shall 23
not be accepted by the Clerk of the House of Rep-24
resentatives or the Secretary of the Senate. 25
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‘‘(b) FLOORCONSIDERATION.— 1
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—The requirements under 2
subsection (a)(1) shall apply to any bill or resolution 3
presented for consideration on the floor of either 4
House of Congress, including a bill or resolution re-5
ported from a committee of either House of Con-6
gress, produced by conference between the 2 Houses 7
of Congress, or offered as a manager’s amendment. 8
‘‘(2) F
AILURE TO COMPLY.—Any bill or resolu-9
tion that does not comply with paragraph (1) shall 10
not be submitted to a vote on final passage. 11
‘‘(c) N
OWAIVER ORMODIFICATION.—Neither House 12
of Congress, nor Congress jointly, by concurrent resolu-13
tion, unanimous consent, or any other order, resolution, 14
vote, or other means, may dispense with, or otherwise 15
waive or modify, the requirements under this section. 16
‘‘§ 105c. Procedures prior to vote on bill or resolution 17
‘‘(a) I
NGENERAL.— 18
‘‘(1) R
EQUIREMENTS FOR VOTE .—A vote on 19
final passage of a bill (except for private bills) or a 20
resolution may not occur in either House of Con-21
gress, unless— 22
‘‘(A) the full text of the bill or resolution 23
is published at least 7 days before the vote on 24
an official internet website of each House of 25
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Congress, easily available to and readily usable 1
by the public, using an open format that is 2
platform independent, machine readable, and 3
available without restrictions on searchability, 4
retrieval, downloading, and indexing, separate 5
and apart from the calendar of the Senate or 6
the House of Representatives; 7
‘‘(B) public notice of the specific calendar 8
week during which the vote is scheduled to take 9
place is posted on the official internet websites 10
described in subparagraph (A) not less than 6 11
days before the Monday of the calendar week 12
during which the vote is scheduled to take 13
place, with failure to take the vote during the 14
noticed week requiring a new notice under this 15
subparagraph; and 16
‘‘(C) except as provided in paragraph (2), 17
the Clerk of the House of Representatives or 18
the Secretary of the Senate has read the full 19
text of the bill or resolution, verbatim, to the 20
respective body of each House of Congress, 21
which have been called to order and physically 22
assembled with a constitutionally required 23
quorum to do business being present through-24
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out the time of the full reading of the text of 1
the bill or resolution. 2
‘‘(2) If a bill or resolution is enrolled by either 3
the House of Representatives or the Senate, for any 4
subsequent consideration of the enrolled bill or reso-5
lution— 6
‘‘(A) it is not necessary for the full text of 7
the bill or resolution to be reread to the House 8
of Congress in which the bill or resolution 9
passed; and 10
‘‘(B) the full text of any amendment to the 11
text of the enrolled bill or resolution shall be 12
read, verbatim, to each House of Congress. 13
‘‘(b) A
FFIDAVIT.— 14
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—Before voting in favor of 15
final passage of a bill (except a private bill) or reso-16
lution, each Senator and each Member of the House 17
of Representatives, except as provided in paragraph 18
(2), shall sign an affidavit executed under penalty of 19
perjury under section 1621 of title 18 attesting that 20
the Senator or Member— 21
‘‘(A) was present throughout the entire 22
reading of each such bill or resolution, and lis-23
tened attentively to such reading in its entirety; 24
or 25
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‘‘(B) prior to voting for passage of such 1
bill or resolution, read attentively each such bill 2
or resolution in its entirety. 3
‘‘(2) V
OTE AGAINST PASSAGE.—A Senator or a 4
Member of the House of Representatives shall not be 5
required to sign an affidavit described in paragraph 6
(1) if the Senator or Member voted against passage 7
of the bill or resolution. 8
‘‘(3) R
ECORDS.—Copies of each affidavit de-9
scribed in paragraph (1) signed by a Senator or a 10
Member of the House of Representatives shall be 11
maintained by the Secretary of the Senate or the 12
Clerk of the House of Representatives, respectively. 13
‘‘(c) J
OURNAL.—With respect to each vote on final 14
passage of a bill (except for a private bill) or resolution, 15
each House of Congress shall cause to be recorded in the 16
journal of its proceedings that the publishing, notice, read-17
ing, and affidavit requirements under this section have 18
been satisfied. 19
‘‘(d) N
OWAIVER ORMODIFICATION.—Neither House 20
of Congress, nor Congress jointly, by concurrent resolu-21
tion, unanimous consent, or any other order, resolution, 22
vote, or other means, may dispense with, or otherwise 23
waive or modify, the requirements set forth in this section. 24
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‘‘§ 105d. Enforcement clause 1
‘‘(a) I
NGENERAL.—An Act of Congress that does 2
not comply with section 105a, 105b, or 105c shall have 3
no force or effect and no legal, equitable, regulatory, civil, 4
or criminal action may be brought under such an Act of 5
Congress. 6
‘‘(b) C
AUSE OFACTION.—Without regard to the 7
amount in controversy, a cause of action under sections 8
2201 and 2202 of title 28 against the United States seek-9
ing appropriate relief (including an injunction against en-10
forcement of any law, the passage of which did not con-11
form to the requirements of section 105a, 105b, or 105c) 12
may be brought by— 13
‘‘(1) a person aggrieved by an action of an offi-14
cer or employee in the executive branch of the Fed-15
eral Government under an Act of Congress that did 16
not comply with section 105a, 105b, or 105c; 17
‘‘(2) a Member of Congress aggrieved by the 18
failure of the House of Congress of which the Mem-19
ber is a Member to comply with section 105a, 105b, 20
or 105c; and 21
‘‘(3) a person individually aggrieved by the fail-22
ure of a Senator for the State in which the ag-23
grieved person resides or by the failure of a Member 24
of the House of Representatives for the District in 25
which the aggrieved person resides to fulfill the obli-26
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gations of the Senator or Member under section 1
105a, 105b, or 105c.’’. 2
SEC. 5. TECHNICAL AND CONFORMING AMENDMENTS. 3
The table of sections for chapter 2 of title 1, United 4
States Code, is amended by inserting after the item relat-5
ing to section 105 the following: 6
‘‘105a. Text of bill or resolution to specify its constitutional authority.
‘‘105b. Text of bill or resolution to set forth current law.
‘‘105c. Procedures prior to vote on bill or resolution.
‘‘105d. Enforcement clause.’’.
SEC. 6. SEVERABILITY CLAUSE.
7
If any provision of this Act or an amendment made 8
by this Act, or the application of a provision or amend-9
ment to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid 10
for any reason in any court of competent jurisdiction, the 11
remainder of this Act and amendments made by this Act, 12
and the application of the provisions and amendment to 13
any other person or circumstance, shall not be affected. 14
Æ
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