One Bill. One Vote. One Issue

Omnibus bills are how Congress hides corruption. Here’s why we must return to single-issue legislation before the Republic collapses.

Let’s talk about something everybody feels but nobody quite names: the monstrosity of omnibus bills. You’ve seen them, well, from a distance like the rest of us. Yea, thousands of pages long and no one reads them. And Congress doesn’t even pretend to debate them issue by issue like they should. They’re jammed through with everything and anything tucked inside — pork, pet projects, special carve-outs, lobbyist wish lists — all in the name of “must-pass legislation.”

Here’s Command Four: One bill. One vote. One issue.

That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing hidden. No bait-and-switch legislative sleight of hand. Propose one issue in one bill. Debate that one issue. Amend that one issue. Vote on that one issue. End of story. We should start with this Issue, this bill, this vote…

This isn’t a stylistic preference. It’s a return to the very reason legislatures exist.

The ancient Greeks and Romans — and later the English Parliament — built their systems around debate and specificity. Early American state legislatures, and the First Congress under the Constitution, passed laws that addressed specific matters, not legislative Frankensteins that only a legal Leviathan could decipher, while the rest of us are left wondering what fresh theft just got passed into law. The very idea that legislators could vote on things they hadn’t yet read would have been scandalous to the Founders. Today? It seems that it’s standard operating procedure.

And don’t think I’m just being rhetorical here. Remember when Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy”? Yes, that’s the full quote — and yes, I’ll admit, reading the whole thing does soften the blow a little bit. ( I truly hate it when I feel the need to be honest. But facts matter, even when they irritate. But I digress again…)

Because even in full context, the message hits like a freight train. Congress had written a 2,700-page monster, and most of them hadn’t even read it. The “fog” Pelosi referenced wasn’t just partisan bickering — it was legislative fog on purpose. Complexity by design. Obscurity as strategy. And that quote? It wasn’t a gaffe. It was a confession. The quiet part said out loud. Proof that Congress is legislating blindfolded, and worse, they’re completely smug about it.

As I’m sure you know that line came during the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, a bill with sweeping consequences for every American, every business, every doctor’s office. It was so bloated, so dense, so deliberately tangled that even senior lawmakers shrugged off their ignorance. They hadn’t read it. Yet they voted for it anyway. Why? Because that’s how the game is played. And they bet that you forgot by the next election. They always do, and yes, most of us did indeed forget.

James Madison and Alexander Hamilton warned in Federalist No. 10 about the dangers of factions and the chaos that arises when too many competing interests collide. But what’s more chaotic than a bill that simultaneously alters tax code, funds unrelated programs, rewrites regulatory regimes, and borrows trillions of dollars — all in the same 2,500 pages? You don’t solve factional conflict by putting every faction’s wish list into a single bill. You amplify it.

Ever notice how rarely omnibus bills are debated on the floor? How often they’re passed via unanimous consent or voted on in the dead of night when very few reporters are watching? That’s no accident. When you pack a bill with a thousand items, you don’t debate the bill — you negotiate those items behind closed doors. That’s not democracy my friends. That’s back-room dealing with attached legislative rubber stamping.

Now lets imagine a Congress where every bill is short enough that each member of congress could read it before the vote. Imagine voters actually knowing what their representatives stood for and not which omnibus package they supported because it secretly had a handout for a lobbyist’s client buried inside.

Contrary to the Beltway narrative, complexity isn’t sophistication. Complexity is dodge. It’s a firewall that shields legislators from responsibility. When a voter asks, “Why did you vote for that thing?” the answer is usually: “Well, it was bundled with something important.” That’s not a defense. That’s a confession.

Shakespeare (yes I’ve been on a tear with him lately!) wrote in Measure for Measure that “our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.” But I’d reframe it for Congress: their evasions are traitors, and they make us lose the clarity we might win if they weren’t cowards hiding behind complexity.

You want to know how much money is buried in these omnibus monstrosities? Try hundreds of billions — often trillions. In just one recent December (Ok OK, it was 12/2022), Congress passed a $1.7 trillion omnibus appropriations package — 4,155 pages long — and gave lawmakers mere hours to vote on it. That’s right. A trillion-dollar, multi-thousand-page Frankenstein stitched together with special interest wishlists and woke social engineering.

Here’s a peek inside: funding for salmon research, LGBT centers in New York, a trail named after Michelle Obama, and dozens of other “urgent” national priorities. And the kicker? Some members of Congress admitted they didn’t read it. But they passed it anyway. Because they always do.

If you want receipts — and I know you do — you can see Heritage’s breakdown of just a few of the absurd earmarks they crammed into that beast: heritage.org

So I ask you: if Congress can’t pass a bill on one issue at a time, then maybe it shouldn’t pass that bill at all. Don’t ya think?

The Founders didn’t build a legislative hairball. They built a system that worked when it worked because it forced deliberation, public scrutiny, and clarity in lawmaking. Omnibus bills are the opposite: they are power without accountability, expedience without consent, and legislation without transparency. It’s gut wrenching!

So I say One bill. One vote. One issue. No mysteries. No bundled bargains. No hidden riders. Just truth. Just accountability. Just the way self-government was supposed to work.

And if Congress can’t manage that most basic discipline? Then maybe they have no business governing at all.

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