Glenn Reynolds
Why not a waiting period for laws?
The goal, thus, is to prevent close inspection through a combination of heavy-handed legislative techniques and bullying rhetoric: If you don’t want to pass our bill without reading it, you must hate the children.
Over the years, we’ve gotten a lot of lousy legislation this way — the Patriot Act, for example, about which I wrote a column something like this one back in 2001. We’ve gotten it because politicians like to manipulate voters and avoid scrutiny.
But why let them?
I’d like to propose a “waiting period” for legislation. No bill should be voted on without hearings, debate and a final text that’s available online for at least a week. (A month would be better. How many bills really couldn’t wait a month?)
Blowback
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Because you have to pass them to find out what’s in them…didn’t you get the memo from the Madam Speaker??
right2bright on January 28, 2013 at 8:49 PM
There should be a mandatory waiting period of 1 week per hundred pages of any bill before it can go up for a vote.
Want to pass 2,000 page monstrosities? Fine, they are going to have to wait 20 weeks to vote on it so that The People can have a chance to READ it even if Congress won’t…
Also, Congresspeople should be REQUIRED to spend at least 1 day per 100 pages of a bill IN THEIR DISTRICT so they have to make themselves available to be CONFRONTED on such bills.
I bet if that were in the Constitution we’d see a LOT FEWER 1,000 page bills…
wildcat72 on January 28, 2013 at 8:49 PM
Good idea.
Better idea: an expiration period on laws.
If a law is so good and popular, Congress should be honored to pass it again in 20 years.
HitNRun on January 28, 2013 at 8:50 PM
Jeeze…too easy.
People should really remember this level of stupidity.
BigWyo on January 28, 2013 at 8:53 PM
No bill should cover more than one topic.
No bill should be more pages than a a normal citizen could sit down and read in 10 minutes.
No bill should use language the average high school graduate does not understand.
All bills should be assigned a dictionary from which it is to be interpreted and every word with more than one meaning to be appended with the specific interpretation code.
The entirety of all the laws which effect the citizen should be capable of being read and understood by a high school student in two semesters in a class.
astonerii on January 28, 2013 at 8:54 PM
And a review and evaluation process for all laws.
Flange on January 28, 2013 at 8:55 PM
I like that. Except I’d make it shorter. If the Bush tax rates only had 7 years before having to be “extended” then no statutory law should be able to go any longer without having to be extended.
Problem is, Congress has no problem extending horrible law. The only thing I ever agreed with democrats on was the abomination that is the PATRIOT Act. Which they have no problems extending into infinity now that Obama gets to use it against the People… As in redefining terrorists to not be muslim jihadists but to be Americans who oppose this Regime…
That’s why not even good men should EVER be trusted with power they should not have, even if THEY use it wisely (as I believe Bush did) eventually will come an evil man (which Obama is) who will abuse it!
wildcat72 on January 28, 2013 at 8:56 PM
How about a requirement that Congress spend half of it’s session reviewing old laws for repeal?
Since we’ve capped the House of Representatives at 435 members (yet another early 20th Century “progressive” abomination) why not cap the NUMBER OF PAGES in the Federal Registry, meaning that if they want to add 2,000 pages of new law, they have to find 2,000 pages of old law to replace?
wildcat72 on January 28, 2013 at 8:59 PM
I’d rather have a mandatory expiration date on all laws. After we’ve had time to determine the unintended consequences they’d have to decide if it is worth it to pass it again…
Fallon on January 28, 2013 at 8:59 PM
How about laws having a maximum life span of 10 years if 100 pages or less in length. Each additional 100 pages reduces it by a year, until any law of 1,000 pages or more has to be re-authorized annually?
wildcat72 on January 28, 2013 at 9:03 PM
It does not hold anyone to account. The large bills with a thousand pages cover a thousand or ten thousand issues, and the politicians tells his constituents that he had to vote for the bill in order to get their piece of the pie.
No law may be longer than a few pages.
No law may be written such that the normal person on the street does not understand exactly what it means.
I think that before a politician can vote for a law, he must write that law in his own hand writing or read it aloud and record it. No need to read it if you abstain or vote no.
All laws must have their language locked such that they cannot be reinterpreted to newly progressive understandings of the law. I suggest they be assigned a specific dictionary and each word with multiple meanings be flagged with the specific meaning code.
astonerii on January 28, 2013 at 9:15 PM
How did we get to this place? CA passes several hundred laws a year. I couldn’t think of several hundred in ten years.
arnold ziffel on January 28, 2013 at 9:15 PM
I like that, but the size of a page must be limited. I hear they can write a hundred thousand copies of a book into a dna strand…
astonerii on January 28, 2013 at 9:18 PM
It’s the special interests that are writing the laws, not the legislators. And there are hundreds of special interests out there feeding money to politicians.
malclave on January 28, 2013 at 9:27 PM
Each page is 8.5″ by 11″ maximum, single spaced, with 1 inch margins on all sides, in 10 point Roman font.
How’s that?
wildcat72 on January 28, 2013 at 9:29 PM
And they mostly write the laws too.
Think Congress writes 2,000 page monstrosities? Of course not. They are taking it whole cloth from special interests. I doubt Congress actually wrote even 5% of Obamcare.
wildcat72 on January 28, 2013 at 9:30 PM
My recommendation for a new restriction on laws… any law that does not apply to the people in the legislature can only be passed by a vote of the people.
malclave on January 28, 2013 at 9:31 PM
Congressmen are weasels, you need to lock them in
sounds good to me.
astonerii on January 28, 2013 at 9:34 PM
I’d like to see the Referendum and Recall apply to the Federal government.
IE: Congress can be recalled. Judges can be recalled. The President can be recalled.
The People can propose their own laws, and if they are voted in by a majority of the states, it’s law.
The People can repeal laws by the same process.
wildcat72 on January 28, 2013 at 9:35 PM
That standard applied to me when I wrote my term papers, so if it’s good enough for “academia” it should be good enough for Congress, right?
wildcat72 on January 28, 2013 at 9:36 PM
I think it would be best to add those powers to the states themselves. See how they handle them. If they prove they cannot handle it, then change it to the “we the people”. But the truth is that that federal government is a creation of the many states, not the people.
I do not think the President should be recallable. He should be impeached. If the citizens demand his impeachment and congress does not act, it would part and parcel of the recall election.
astonerii on January 28, 2013 at 9:39 PM
I’m not picky with what it is, just so that it is written in stone as to what constitutes a page.
I’m easy like that.
astonerii on January 28, 2013 at 9:41 PM