Everyone of us is accountable to someone. No big deal. We’re expected to do certain things, perform in certain ways, accomplish certain tasks, achieve certain goals. No matter what our job, “the boss” has a right to demand that we do the work for which we were hired and for which we are paid. Pretty simple concept – and one that most of us accept as fair and reasonable – or else we don’t keep the job for very long because the boss will fire our sorry butts for failure to meet the demands of the position. The HR folks call this “Management by Objective” – where clearly defined standards are communicated to the employee, so that when the evaluation process takes place it is no surprise to the poor schmuck when he learns that the boss wasn’t so thrilled with his job performance after all.

The same concept should apply to our elected officials.

When we elect our Congressional representatives, we are, plain and simply, hiring them to do a job – represent our interests in the legislative duties of government. We understand that on controversial legislation, there is no way any one person can “represent” both the supporters and the opposition on any given bill. But we do have the right to expect the our representatives and senators will read and understand the legislation they vote on. Over the past several months a majority of the members of both the House and Senate voted to spend billions and billions of taxpayer dollars WITHOUT EVER HAVING READ THE FRIGGIN’ BILLS!!!! Derelection of duty – pure and simple. It is not acceptable that “a staffer” has read the bill. If we wanted to rely on some staffer – we would have voted for the damn staffer!!! Apparently there has been a “failure to communicate”. This must change.

So here’s the deal: The Let Freedom Ring organization has mailed out pledge cards to all 535 members of congress asking them to pledge that they will read the healthcare bill before voting on it. The pledge doesn’t obligate the legislators to vote any particular way – it just obligates them to do the basic job for which they were elected. The cards went out earlier this week and the Exec. Dir of the group said they will give the Congressional members two weeks to respond and then they will release the names of those who responded and those who didn’t. (I expect that Denny Hoyer’s obnoxiously condescending response will hit YouTube much sooner.)

If you think that the healthcare bill might possibly be an important piece of legislation that warrants at least the minimal level of effort on the part of Denny Rehberg, Max Baucus, and Jon Tester (or for my out-of-state readers – insert names of your rep and senators), call or email each of them and let them know that you – THEIR BOSS – fully expect them to sign the pledge and then read the healthcare bill before voting on it.

And, oh yeah, remind them that when the time comes to evaluate their performance with an eye to continued employment, this is one of the “performance standards” that your vote will be based on.