No I won't pledge to vote YES on bills I haven't read

Last week I subjected myself to a little fuss on Facebook because of my refusal to sign a "pledge to restore the rights of the people and the authority of the State Legislature by voting FOR measures that REPEAL ObamaCare (the Affordable Health Care Act) in total or in part."

Click the link above (pdf alert) and you'll see the short list of my colleagues who now HAVE TO vote yes on bills they've not yet seen, regardless of whether a so-called "Repeal Obamacare bill" is ill-conceived, hastily drafted, a distraction or even a bill that is detrimental to the overall cause. Pledging means you are voting for it, regardless. If you decide to vote against it later, you can give reasons otherwise all day long but there is no room for those on this groups next scorecard. Those who didn't sign, like myself, are dubbed "political pollution" in the party. Rubbish.

My conversation with these folks went nowhere. This was my statement to them:

Here's my pledge and you do with it what you want…

1) I oppose Obamacare and am delighted it's being challenged in court and I'll do whatever I can to support the repeal of it.

2) I will not pledge to blindly support any and every different legislative attempt to appeal it as some attempts just may be poorly conceived, hastily drafted, distracting and even worse, detrimental to our goal of repealing Obamacare.

3) I will never pledge blindly to vote for a bill I've not read, let alone these bills which haven't been written.

That's what Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi want their followers to do… just sign them, we'll read them later and see what they say. That's a disservice to the voters in my district. Let's say I signed, then saw the bill was a mess and vote against it. Of course that would mean I "broke the pledge."

Following that statement I informed my good Christian conservative friends they now had an ethical dilemma on their hands. Would they proceed as planned to report me, a non-pledger, as not supporting the repeal of Obamacare all the while knowing my clear position is to repeal it?

Yep, they did just that. These report cards mislead voters and are a great disservice to legislators.

There are better ways to advance our values. They've chosen to posture themselves in attack mode and it's unnecessary friendly-fire. Consider this post yet another plea from me that they work to figure out more winsome ways to influence public policy. If they can't win me over, how on earth will they win over the 90% of the people in our state who are to the left of them? (I'm guessing at the 90%. I don't remember what the percentage vote was in the 2010 SD Republican primary. It's probably not good to throw percentages at each other, forgive me.)

Having just come from the Janklow funeral which was, visibly, far more "South Dakota" than either Republican or Democrat I have hope there will be an emerging generation of leaders who "don't give a damn what a few (philosophical purists) think but just do the right thing."