The US Attorney Purge

I haven't been writing about this one because a) I've been focusing on other things, and b) Josh Marshall and his crew are doing a bang-up job of covering it over at TPM.

But one thing that came up early on in the story that I don't recall seeing much about since: the provision of the Patriot Act that allows the appointment of US Attorneys without Senate confirmation was reportedly slipped in by a Senate staffer and none of our Senators knew about it. In fact, I seem to remember reading something about it being slipped in after the vote, but I won't vouch for that -- my memory does play tricks sometimes.

So, do you think we have a structural problem here? Staffers drafting and inserting clauses into legislation without legislators' knowledge seems to me to be a real problem. Legislators voting on bills they haven't read is a real problem.

Should be illegal.