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Greg on Politics(3): Legislative Reform |
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Gregory Morris, 5/17/07 9:56:56 am |
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First: implement a "Single-Subject Law" rule in both houses of Congress (or just one if you really wanna see sparks fly.) Some states have this already. Basically for a provision to be added to a law, it has to be directly relevant to that law. I love this idea, because it defuses a lot of those nasty political maneuvers that really piss me off. ("You didn't vote for such-and-such! You must be against it!" ... "No, I didn't vote against it because you added in some bullshit that isn't relevant.")
Second: require non-emergency legislation be remain hold no less than 2 months from the initial reading in each house prior to voting. This is along the same idea as requiring congressmen to take a test on a law before they are allowed to vote. There is no way that a congressman can claim something slipped through without his knowledge. Certain types of legislation are emergencies, and it would be a simple matter for congress to vote on whether a law is indeed an emergency. A perfect example would be funding for disaster recovery. The budget probably wouldn't be restricted by this either.
Third: require that a non-emergency law cannot go into effect until 6 months after it passes. There are numerous reasons for this. The biggest one is that it will mitigate knee-jerkiness. The second is that it will allow state legislatures time to revise their laws accordingly. Third, and most importantly, it will allow time for court challenges before a bad law causes any damage. There is rarely an instance when a law needs to go into effect immediately. When a politician demands that a law be passed and go into effect quickly, chances are they are knee-jerking or trying to hide their true motives.
Fourth: A constitutional amendment, forcing congress to set a mandatory sunset clause for all new laws passed.
This is the one I really want to talk about, so I will. In detail...
Some of the suggestions I have for such a provision are:
After the expiration a law can be renewed, made permanent, or let to expire.
A law cannot become permanent until it has had a trial run, and a second round of voting.
Require the "sunset provision" to be between 2 and 4 years.
It would be really nice to somehow make it easy to apply this to old laws. I have no idea of how that would work.
Take note that I abhor constitutional amendments. Among the uneducated, they are thought to "grant rights" to the people, when in reality, the people already have the rights, and enumerating them simply makes it seem like we have less than we would in an ideal world. The bill of rights was pure (and not unfounded!) paranoia. It enumerates what is off-limits to lawmakers (after the constitution enumerates the government's powers specifically.) This amendment would have nothing to do with my rights, simply how the federal government operates... which was the point in allowing amendments to the constitution in the first place.
Pros:
Enables laws that are bad and/or useless to expire.
Eliminate stupid and partisan bills, with the worst-case scenario being a short trial run.
Force members of congress to think before sticking something in a bill that may be contentious later.
Eliminates worthless "feel-good" legislation.
Eliminates some court challenges to laws, because less borderline-unconstitutional legislation will get passed.
If a law works, and everyone is happy with it after a few years, it is simple enough to bring it up for a vote to make it permanent.
A law passed by a republican congress may come up for re-vote by a democrat-controlled congress. There is more balance between the parties this way.
Cons:
More work for congress (oh well, maybe they can just vote themselves a pay raise.) This would substantially change how D.C. politics works. Now, each time you have to fight to pass a law, you will generally have to fight two times or more. While I don't personally think this is a "con", some people might view it as such.
In an ideal world, this could be applied retroactively to older laws, but that would take forever, and congress would likely get bogged down debating subsections of 100 year old laws.
Still allows politicians to declare victories when stupid laws are passed, even if they will probably go away in a few years.
Fast cycling of laws may be confusing, but this is mitigated by the fact that congress will be more likely to act in a cautious manner.
Examples:
This clearly worked out well for the Clinton Assault Weapons Ban (although it took 10 years.) The law did nothing (except to help firearms sales) but since it was allowed to expire, no long-term damage was done.
Another example is the Patriot Act, which although it has some good/useful parts, also damages our constitutional rights. Since nobody really opposed it (which would have been political suicide, just after 9/11) nobody really even discussed it before voting for it. However, since there had to be a vote to renew it, it gave the people more time to think about the pros and cons of the bill, and to determine if it is really working. Congress decided that although it may have some problems, it is indeed working, and therefore they renewed it. The important thing is they didn't renew it until everyone had time to think about it.
More examples
Clearly tax increases should sunset.
Bush's tax cut has a sunset provision as well.
The Sedition Act of 1798 which was clearly unconstitutional, was made to sunset. Granted, the reason for the sunset provision was merely political wrangling (the federalists, who enacted it, didn't want it used against them when they left office.) Regardless, it forced a bad law which was being abused, to expire.
In Texas, entire government agencies (except ones defined in the constitution) will sunset if not re-authorized. This is a powerful tool for managing government waste and spending, since it forces the agencies to prove their worth every time their sunset comes around!
How to make it happen:
While I don't see these ideas being implemented at the federal level any time soon, they have been in some states. Any of the more libertarian-oriented states (Vermont, Alaska, etc.) should be able to support this type of thinking. Of course, it is the nanny-oriented-states (California, NY, Mass.) who probably need it more.
Here is a Cato Institute essay on sunset provisions for more background (and one of my references.)
Note: this is not meant to be scholarly work. This is simply my opinion. If I use someone else's ideas, I try to credit them where appropriate. I also reserve the right to change my opinion when provided with better information, as any half-intelligent person should do. |
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