Budget bill posted online Tuesday, voted on Thursday

Readers asked us to check into a recent House vote on the federal budget for fiscal year 2011. Members of Congress almost forced a budget shutdown before coming to a late agreement on April 8.

Negotiators from the White House, Senate and House of Representatives reached an agreement in principal on that Friday night and worked through the weekend to draw up formal legislation. Meanwhile, a stopgap measure continued funding the government.

The official agreement was posted very early in the morning on Tuesday. The House Rules Committee showed the budget legislation posted at 1:50 a.m.

The vote on the matter occurred on Thursday at 3 p.m.

As we've noted before (see updates below), we're tracking a promise to publish the text of proposals online "for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives." The House rules adopted at the beginning of the year define those as calendar days. So the budget proposal would meet that rule for having been public on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Some have noted -- most notably, open government advocates The Sunlight Foundation -- that Speaker of the House John Boehner made other statements during the campaign pledging a 72-hour window before a vote. By that standard, the budget bill falls short. At least one other bill recently was handled the same way.

The promise we're tracking is from the Republican document "A Pledge to America," and it says three days, not 72 hours.

We're documenting here that the Republicans are not airing legislation for a full 72 hours. As we've noted before, the Republicans may be adhering to the letter of their rule, but they've violated the spirit by rushing through legislation. So we leave the rating on this promise Stalled for now and will monitor how they do with future bills before making a final ruling.