What Lamar Smith Did – and Didn’t – Learn from SOPA

Fifty days.

That’s the median time it took for eight legislative bills – on economic espionage, identity theft, abortion in the District of Columbia – to circulate in the House of Representatives before they were put on the agenda for Tuesday’s markup session by the House Judiciary Committee.

Zero days.

That’s how long the ninth bill on the agenda, a measure submitted by Judiciary chair Lamar Smith, had been in formal existence before being included for Tuesday’s markup. Unlike the other eight (H.R. 6029, H.R. 4362, H.R. 3803… ), Smith’s