I must disagree. I believe you are overstating things.<p>Schoolhouse rocks, last I checked, had one bill moving from one house to the other. Citizens could lobby at any point, including the conference committee.<p>Each of these were passed in isolation, then stuck together, then stuck into a budget bill. Then the only question was whether you wanted the entire bill to pass or not.<p>It&#x27;s a fair interpretation to say that some reasonable public feedback -- if nothing else than what kinds of compromises needed to occur between both bills -- was missing from the mash-up we got this past week. Yes, majorities approved of similar bills in both houses. But there was no point in time where the public was informed &quot;Hey, this is your last chance if you want to change what&#x27;s going to go into the law&quot;<p>Another way of looking at this is asking this question: if we&#x27;re going to use the rules for budget bills on everything else that might be controversial, why have conference committees at all? Just pass kinda the same thing in each house and then look for the right political moment and the right combination of things to lump together so that you can do whatever you want to.<p>This is just leadership writing laws. If they want to do things like that, fine. I believe the logical conclusion is that we should start having direct election of house and senate leadership.