Okay, so here we are. For two centuries or more, once a bill passes Congress, only Congress can change it. The president can veto it or not. The Supreme Court can rule a law unconstitutional. But that's it.

But it turns out that back in 2005, to guarantee an earmark payoff to one of his political contributors, Rep. Don Young (R-AK) actually went in and rewrote the text of a transportation spending bill after the thing had been passed by Congress and it was waiting to be signed by the president.

We explain what happened in today's episode of TPMtv ...

(ed.note: There was a case back a couple years ago when a bill went through Congress but a transcription error led to the bill appearing with slightly different text in the House and Senate versions. Frist and Hastert got together and decided to send the House version on to the president since that was what the conference committee agreed to. A court has since ruled the judiciary won't second-guess this decision. That, I would say, is pretty iffy itself. But at least the leaders of both bodies speak in some fashion for each House. And it was basically setting right a technical error. So even though it was pretty bad, it's simply not comparable to one member -- with no standing -- sneaking a new pay-off into the bill after final passage through Congress.)