Rich, it would be really useful for someone in a position to research Pelosi’s monstrosity in digital form to perform a word-search for such terms as “regulations.” Enabling statutes typically delegate regulatory power to executive branch officials (e.g., the Secretary of Health and Human Services), using such phrases as “in accordance with such regulations as the Secretary shall prescribe.” I’m betting that there are numerous such provisions in the bill. Thus a 2000-page bill, in reality, will be many thousands of pages longer because it will result in an explosion or regulation-writing in the Code of Federal Regulations. If we think it’s bad that we’re not going to be given time to digest what’s in the statute, what should we think about the zillions of regulations that haven’t been written yet?
Addressing the undemocratic nature of various lawmaking practices in his short book, A Matter of Interpretation, Justice Scalia recalled “the trick the emperor Nero was said to engage in: posting edicts high up on the pillars so that they could not easily be read.” Such practices lend themselves to all sorts of arbitrary enforcement, confiscation, and abuse. We’re there.