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Laws Should Come With Expiration Dates
This would help get rid of laws passed by vote-panderers appealing to the hysteria of the moment -- especially those with unintended consequences, as so many seem to have.

For example, do we really want to brand as sex offenders -- and treat as the same as kiddie diddlers -- teens who, at 17, have sex with their 16-year-old girlfriend? Do we really need to keep a watch on them and, say, restrict them from dropping off their kids at elementary school?

This idea comes from a piece by Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe:

THE GREAT state of Minnesota, you'll be glad to learn, is no longer interested in the size and color of your bug deflector. The legislature in St. Paul recently scrapped the 1953 law regulating that automotive accessory, one of almost 1,200 antiquated or bizarre laws that Governor Mark Dayton recommended repealing as part of a major legislative "unsession." Among other changes: Minnesotans have been liberated from the ban on possessing more than two hen pheasants, the penalty for distributing berries in the wrong-sized container is history, and it is now legal to coast with your car's gears in neutral.
"We got rid of all the silly laws," one state official told the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. That was probably overstating things, given the more than 46,000 laws that Minnesota lawmakers have enacted over the years. Still, the pruning of 1,200 pieces of deadwood is no small achievement.

It's also a reminder of why nearly all laws and regulations should come with expiration dates.

Politicians are always under pressure to respond to the crisis or controversy of the moment -- by passing a statute, imposing a mandate, authorizing a subsidy, setting up an agency. When the issue fades, the laws and regulations remain, long after public attention has moved on.

...In the real world, things don't last forever. The carton of milk in your refrigerator has an expiration date. So does the credit card in your wallet. Cars need periodic tune-ups. Medical prescriptions have to be reauthorized.

Government should operate on the same assumption. Every law should expire automatically after a fixed period of time -- say, 12 or 15 years -- unless lawmakers expressly vote to reauthorize it. Likewise every legislatively created agency and program. Members of Congress and state legislatures should be required to revisit their handiwork on a regular basis, reviewing it for relevance, efficacy, and soundness, and allowing measures that have outlived their usefulness to lapse.

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Comments

With this should come another expiration date: the last day a legislator should serve before leaving the legislature for at LEAST one term.

Or, as the wags put it: Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed regularly, and for the same reasons. . .

Keith Glass at June 16, 2014 6:13 AM

This is all good, but... the thing that really needs to be attacked is the regulatory state. Given that tax cuts are pretty much impossible under the current environment, the next best thing to reduce the cost of government for the citizens is a regulation cut. There may be tens of thousands of laws, but there are millions of regulations, all of which have the force of law. Work on significantly cutting regulations and limiting the scope and authority of the regulatory agencies.

Cousin Dave at June 16, 2014 6:13 AM

Oh yeah, I'm all for it! We still have one on the books that says it's against the law to walk backward after 7 p.m. in the Devon section of town!
And another one that says it is illegal for a man to attend a Sunday worship service unarmed.

Flynne at June 16, 2014 7:29 AM

As a side benefit, if it is not a "rubber stamp" operation legislators would be too busy to pass more than a hundred new laws per tear rather than a thousand.

Alas, they might also not have time to read new laws such as "Obamacare." Oh, wait...

John A at June 16, 2014 7:50 AM

I remember having this discussion once when we should have been studying for an exam in college; it would be a significant shift from the Anglo-Saxon mentality (but not so much from certain continental mentalities, e.g. Dutch) to imagine that, as you have turnover, you should require an active reaffirmation of the laws that are wholesome and good, and let the bad ones die. Maybe the Jubilee year would be good to reinstitute; I was partial to either 19 or 39 years, depending on how you measure a generation.

It would be great for treaties as well, except for those that are simply fait accompli like ends of wars or transfers of property. We'd probably renew the first Geneva Convention forever; we might even have a discussion about how we do or don't live up to them; we might reconsider a number of other treaties for continued relevancy.

MrGreenMan at June 16, 2014 9:05 AM

Why do I see such a rule have unexpected results?... I can see it becoming a rubberstamping issue where all it does is create cost. May be new laws would be even less reviewed and worse.

My favorite out-of-date law which was on the books until the late '90s was that people visiting town needed to send word ahead to the sherif and if that was not possible to report to the sherif as soon as possible upon entering town.

The Former Banker at June 16, 2014 9:12 AM

This is one of the problems with government, that legislatures and city councils feel like they need to keep passing new laws in order to justify their existence and their high costs. Goodness forbid we go through a whole year without any new laws to put in place. Keep in mind that silly laws are not just a product of a decades-old past.

I used to live in New Mexico, where legislative sessions last no longer than two months each year. However, because almost nothing gets done in that short amount of time, there have been several calls for year-round sessions. That is the last thing New Mexico needs.

Fayd at June 16, 2014 11:26 AM

Fayd at June 16, 2014 11:43 AM

Argh! I knew it was going to be a double-post!

Fayd at June 16, 2014 11:44 AM

Fayd, are you a politician? posting things twice - as if one wasn't enough. Just kidding.

Some laws, yes, I think a "trial period" would be a good idea. But, for most laws no; this would not be a good idea - as others here have said we will end up with a large cost of trying to rubberstamp existing laws again, and again, and again. As if they don't waste enough time and our tax dollars already. We don't need to give them another excuse to waste even more money.

What I would like to see, as Cousin Dave points out, is a trimming of the regulatory state. These government busybodies are not elected, have very little oversight, cannot be recalled, and cannot be voted out of office.

While there is a need for some government oversight for public safety (something that I would NOT want to leave in the hands of politicians), etc. Often times it seems as if they have too much power over our everyday lives. And we are very powerless to stop them.

Charles at June 16, 2014 1:27 PM

The removal of 1200 silly laws is itself a form of pandering to claim that government is doing something good, for once. It is entirely symbolic.

These laws were not being enforced for obvious reasons. They had been repealed by time and public opinion. No official would have dared enforce any of them.

The law making men aged 17 into sex offenders will not be repealed this way. Some people think it is harsh and some don't. Every affected 16 y.o. girl has parents who want the law. No MN politician is going to risk being "lenient" toward the men involved in "sexual predator" behavior.

No other law of any controversy will be repealed this way. No law that "saves even one child" will be so repealed. The pandering will continue.

Andrew_M_Garland at June 16, 2014 5:58 PM

I think that to re-pass a law they should require a 2/3 majority of both houses.

That means obvious things like murder statutes and rape would sail smoothly through. But the gun control and other "panicked" legislation would probably be killed.

Jim P. at June 16, 2014 6:07 PM

"This is one of the problems with government, that legislatures and city councils feel like they need to keep passing new laws in order to justify their existence and their high costs."

Wow. Everybody missed the key...

Political office is a capitalist venture. Candidates are expressly put into office to PASS LAWS, to make things happen, to bring home pork, to do all sorts of things the citizen thinks they might deserve for their vote. The first rule about ruling is, of course, that you have to get elected. No pol is going to sit back and try to explain that nothing is the right thing to do, even when it is. (S)he got elected to PASS LAWS. It does not matter if they are redundant, unenforceable or even have unintended consequences!

I'm surprised I have to explain such things.

Radwaste at June 16, 2014 8:39 PM

> Candidates are expressly put into office to
> PASS LAWS, to make things happen, to bring
> home pork, to…

Eh. They're expressly put into office to represent their districts as laws are passed. Or not passed. (I'm surprised I have to explain such [key!] things to a guy who's always been so literal about the Executive's constrained warmaking authority. Tee hee. Har.)

But, like, seriously, yeah. This is one of the reasons I resent sloppy language. Common speech patterns, far more than when I was a child, describe the President of the United States as a leader or "in charge," and describe Congress as 'the place to write laws'.

We'll, we've got a President who's out of his mind, with neither the enthusiasm nor the capacity for persuasion, and the number of laws on the books is exploding, and has put every one of us at risk for prosecution.

Specifically: I had to watch a whole hour of the discussion for this morsel from Wieseltier. No, Leon, I will not "excuse the expression."

I deeply believe half of humanity's problems are caused by people who are cowardly with language, pulling popular wordings out of the air when talking about delicate things.

Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 17, 2014 12:18 AM

Another thought: If every law, decent or shitty, had to be re-written every few years, it might allow Congress the administrative cover to reach even more deeply into our culture with their corrupting powers.

It's at least possible that some good sectors of American economic excellence are sliding through nicely because they're correctly regulated (or correctly unregulated), and no one's paying attention.

Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 17, 2014 12:21 AM

Also, this was a great thread

Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 17, 2014 12:22 AM

"They're expressly put into office to represent their districts as laws are passed. Or not passed."

Nice theory. Not fact - because you missed the part about what "represent their district" means.

The "district" wants to be paid, fed, clothed and employed by the pork you bring home. You know examples abound.

You really shouldn't let your urge to contradict someone beat you up like that.

Radwaste at June 17, 2014 6:02 AM

(Ok, it was a middling thread.)

Sugar, you wanna be literal or you don't, right?

Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at June 17, 2014 9:35 AM

Hi there, Raddy.