Iain, I love that idea, but it got me thinking. In the criminal law, the purpose of a formal arraignment is for the court to ensure that the defendant understands what he is being charged with before entering a plea. It is all very pro forma: defense counsel has received a copy of the indictment ahead of time and defendants nearly always plead “not guilty” at arraignment (ensuring that there will be weeks if not months of time to scrutinize the indictment carefully before the trial starts), so, when the judge (as is required) asks if the defendant waives the public reading of the indictment, defense counsel virtually always says yes. Still, every now and then you get some defendant who — usually just to break, um, those things they seem to have lost at Emmanuel College — demands that the indictment be read publicly, forcing all in attendance to sit through it, however long it takes.

I don’t know enough about Congress’s parliamentary procedures to know the answer to this, but is there no similar rule in our legislature? That is, when the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House announces that his/her chamber is about to take up a bill, is there no requirement that they ask whether any member demands the public reading of the bill?

Maybe there is such a rule but no member invokes it because they all know it would chew up all legislative time, meaning you couldn’t get done things you actually supported, especially when your adversaries started reciprocally using it against you. I’m just curious.