We’re almost seven months into the Obama Administration’s first term and change is certainly occurring at breathtaking speed. In fact, much of the change is taking place too quickly. Stimulus spending, socialized health care and the cap and trade legislation are being railroaded through Congress, with Democrats frantically prognosticating that if we don’t act fast enough, our nation is doomed.

In fact, while Americans are concerned about the current state of our economy, health care system, and government, they would probably prefer slow, deliberative solutions to hasty, haphazard, short-term answers. That is exactly why America’s founders, in their eminent and prescient wisdom, designed a legislative process with innate checks and balances and elongated debate, thus tempering public passion demanding immediate, short-sighted reactions to problems.

The legislative process was crafted to allow for public input through committee hearings, public debate via representatives, and issuance of daily records so that the public can keep tabs on what their lawmakers are doing. But in their haste to transform America’s democratic republic into European socialism or worse, such contemplative processes—especially public oversight—will not benefit Democrats. In order to achieve their goals, laws must be passed and the fundamental structure of government changed with the American people knowing as little as possible.

The first example of this congressional haste was the massive stimulus bill that, now it turns out, didn’t deliver quite as much stimuli as promised. Whoops. As they contemplate stimulus part deux, maybe leaders in DC should take a more measured, slower approach when enslaving future generations with ungodly debt…but let’s not hold our breath in that vain hope.

Just two weeks ago Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts rammed through the Cap and Trade legislation late on a Friday evening, then hightailed it out of town before Americans could vent their wrath. The undemocratic shenanigans that occurred during the floor debate on Cap and Trade put governments in Venezuela or China to shame. Republicans hadn’t even read the content of the tome-length bill before the vote, and even then they couldn’t physically obtain copies of amendments made just before floor debate. The founders could never have anticipated such irresponsibility as legislators voting on enormous, life-altering legislation without even reading it first. At least there was some pretence of public debate about the stimulus and cap and trade bills. In California, public input in the legislative process is almost nonexistent.

Unfortunately, California is a leader in more than just technology, agriculture and entertainment. California’s Democrat-controlled legislature has become the model for the Democrat despotism growing in the nation’s capitol. The lawmakers in no other state capital could be better described as elitists.

House Republican Leader John Boehner lamented that the cap and trade bill, the most significant legislation in a hundred years, was given a measly five hours of debate. That’s an eternity for debate by California standards. Continued...