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发帖数: 29846 | 1 At Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the bipartisan “Gang of
Eight” immigration bill, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) questioned Department of
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on whether she actually read
the bill she was testifying about before her appearance at the hearing.
With Napolitano having to focus most of her attention on the terrorist
attacks in Boston, Cruz wondered where she found the time to read the
legislation. She said she did read the bill, but Cruz joked that must have
made a “busy weekend” for Napolitano.
Here’s a transcript of the exchange:
Cruz: "I’d like to ask questions both dealing with process on this
legislation and then also dealing with border security, starting with
process. My office received the text of this bill at 2:25 a.m. on Wednesday
April 17, five days ago. The bill is 844 pages long. It is dealing with a
very complicated topic. My first question is, when did your office receive a
copy of the bill as was filed?"
Napolitano: “About three o’clock in the morning, that’s about right.”
Cruz: “In the five days since then, when you have obviously been
heavily focused on matters such as the Boston bombing and quite properly
focused on matters such as that, have you had the time to read all 844 pages
in the bill?”
Napolitano: “Actually, I have read the bill. I know many sections of
the bill fairly well so I was able to skim those sections but I have been
able to review the bill, yes sir.”
Cruz: “Okay, then that has been a busy weekend for you?”
Napolitano: “Yes sir. Very busy.”
Later in the hearing, when Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) corrected an erroneous page
number and section number citation she made from the bill during earlier
questioning, Napolitano said she has “read the bill” but that she has “
not memorized the pages."
As Craig Bannister at CNS News notes, officials “would need nearly three
full days to read it - if they never stopped to eat, sleep, or do anything
else.”
The bill is 844 pages long, and it takes the average person at least five
minutes to read one page of technical language. Bannister points out that it
would take lawmakers and officials “4,220 minutes to read the bill (5 x
844 = 4,220). Divide that by 60 minutes and you get 70.3 hours.”
“Divide 70.3 hours by 24, and it would take 2.93 days for a congressman to
read the entire immigration bill - if he started and didn't stop until he
finished,” Bannister wrote. |
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