Congress set an ignoble record when it replenished the coronavirus relief piggy bank in December. The legislation, a Frankenstein's monster of stitched-together budget measures, filled 5,593 pages, making it the longest bill to become law in United States history.

It's a safe bet that lawmakers didn't pore over each page before weighing in with their support or opposition. You could read the average 1,200-page Bible more than four and a half times before your representative and senators finish perusing the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021.

While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's infamous 2010 comment on the Affordable Care Act is often truncated, it's not much better in context: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it — away from the fog of the controversy."

The health care overhaul commanded 906 pages, comparatively light reading. Bundled with all the federal regulations it authorizes, however, the laws and rules that comprise "Obamacare" fill roughly 10,000 pages of text.

Voluminous bills make for effective political theater. In a town hall meeting I covered a decade ago, Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina thwacked a copy of the verbose legislation onto the stage, prompting a chorus of boos. Not to be outdone, GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell's office tweeted a picture of a towering stack of documents tied with a bow.

Obamacare gripes notwithstanding, bulky bills are a bipartisan sin. As of 2009, each party had sponsored five of the 10 longest bills filed over the previous decade, Glenn Thrush reported in a blog post for Politico.

Enter Sen. Rand Paul's Read the Bills Act, which would prevent bigwigs on both sides of the aisle from rushing hasty compromises drafted in D.C. backrooms to a floor vote before journalists, stakeholders and voters can so much as skim the cover page. Not everyone wants to know how the proverbial sausage is made, but even the worst wurst carries a nutrition facts label.

Paul introduced the legislation, designated as Senate Bill 103, on Jan. 28. It's failed to attract any cosponsors, and GovTrack analytics partner Skopos Labs gives it just a 4% chance of becoming law.

Why devote ink to a doomed bill whose sole sponsor is better known for goading National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci in contentious Senate hearings than his commitment to transparency and good government?

Because it could serve as a blueprint for post-Trump populism in the splintered but still competitive Republican Party.

DownsizeDC.org, a libertarian-leaning think tank, is working to rally public support. A recent email from the group features former Libertarian Party presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen's ringing endorsement.

"Read the Bills will make Congress slow down and deliberate," Jorgensen wrote. "Fewer pages of legislation will pass. Fewer bad ideas will pass. Good ideas will actually stand a better chance than they do now. Government growth will slow, as will your tax and debt burden."

Evoking an image of mighty Spartan warriors holding off the Persian hordes, Jorgensen and DownsizeDC say "The 300" can end legislative indifference to Paul's pitch. The group wants to recruit 300 people in each U.S. congressional district to pressure senators and representatives for their support.

While Congress is loath to regulate itself and anything with Paul's fingerprints is dead on arrival in Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's Senate, the Read the Bills Act will garner broad support among the American electorate.

The principle that legislators should understand what they're voting on isn't exactly red meat for right-wingers. It's the kind of common-sense reform that could generate interest from liberals, independents and Lincoln Project expats who defected from Trump's GOP. It could mark a return to big-tent Republicanism.

Backers will need bigger names than Jorgensen. The Libertarian Party won't be a power player next year or in 2024, but the "liberty wing" of the Republican Party is primed for ascendancy.

Few pundits today will acknowledge that Ron Paul's insurgent 2008 presidential campaign set the stage for the Tea Party movement's meteoric rise. The cerebral contrarian's son might emerge as the vanguard of a new populism that unites people with vastly different views behind a shared goal: Show 'em who's boss, or throw the bums out.

Corey Friedman is an opinion journalist who explores solutions to political conflicts from an independent perspective. Follow him on Twitter @coreywrites. To find out more about Corey Friedman and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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