Did those who voted for it read it? You can find the original, H.R. 3162, at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-107hr3162enr/pdf/BILLS-107hr3162enr.pdf. It has 131 pages and 57,796 words. At 800 wpm that would take 72 minutes to read. More likely it would be at 300 wpm or 192 minutes.
I scanned 26 pages of the PDF file in about 30 minutes and gave up. It's very hard to understand because much of it is "strike" and "insert" directions for existing law. One would have to have be constantly referring to those laws to make sense of it. I imagine it would take several days to read it and understand it fully.
Somebody challenged the members of the Senate to read it, and only one Senator took up the challenge. He voted no, a real patriot. Sen. Barack Obama voted yes.
"[The electors] will not be liable to be deceived by those brilliant appearances of genius and patriotism, which, like transient meteors, sometimes mislead as well as dazzle."
Federalist No. 64, "The Powers of the Senate", John Jay,New York Packet, 1788-03-07
Maybe we need a Constitutional amendment that no bill can be longer than the original Constitution (4601 words). Given all the misinterpretations of the Constitution, that still might be too long.
