2003-07-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

Think of the amendment this way. Many new laws are like a tax. Laws cost money because government must spend money to implement and enforce them. They cost businesses and people money because they must learn the new laws and and abide by them. And, in another sense of the word "tax," laws sap away the power and strength of the individual in favor of government and others who have the wealth to pay to figure out how to play the law to their favor.

This doesn't mean all new laws are bad, but it does mean that politicians shouldn't be free to enact as many new laws as they want, whenever they want. This amendment puts reasonable bounds on the lawmaking process.

2003-07-01T13:09:00.000-07:00

The amendment states, in effect, that to pass a new law, an old one must be repealed. One for one. It is that simple.

2003-02-18T20:41:00.000-08:00

This is an amendment to give power to the citizens of our country. It is populist at heart. Laws, as well as people, can be dictators and rob people of their independence and their motivation (and, in fact, obligation) to act responsibly as citizens and neighbors. This amendment puts in place a check and a balance on the laws that get passed regardless of subject matter, whereas the existing Constitution only puts checks and balances on the institutions of our government and on certain laws by subject matter.

2002-11-12T17:26:00.000-08:00

Our country has over 200 years of laws on its books. Each year Congress passes new laws, the executive branch issues more orders and the administrative agencies of the federal government make hosts of new rules. If the current governmental structure, and its incentives, do not change, the numbers of new laws, orders and rules that will govern every facet of our lives and businesses in ten, twenty or one hundred years is almost unfathomable. Already, no person or small or medium size business can keep track of them all. And, if these laws are not only tracked, but understood, they cannot be obeyed. Only large corporations spending thousands or millions on legal fees each year can hope to keep up and comply.

This country is based on a mutual commitment and accepted common interest in the rule of law. That commitment and common interest is fundamentally endangered when the laws become so numerous and complex as to far outstrip any individual’s ability to understand or comply with them.

Legislators, presidents and bureaucrats, even the best intentioned and most public-minded, have every incentive to pass more laws, issue new orders and make new rules. For any problem that comes to the attention of a politician or bureaucrat, whether by public outcry or private interest sponsorship, these officials show their constituents that they’re doing their job by either enforcing existing laws or by proposing, drafting and passing new laws or ordering up new rules, or both.

But how many really new problems arise, particularly that require federal laws to attend to them? We have federal laws on the books on almost every subject, including, in no particular order, laws regarding personal and business taxes, the environment, intellectual property, criminal acts (white collar and other), voting, energy, fisheries, product safety, transportation, travel, food, air, water, animals, speech, antitrust, securities, banking, mining, space, drugs, medicine, personal health decisions, science, research, education, immigration, interstate commerce, international trade, and many, many other areas. And when there aren’t statutes, orders and agency rules, there’s federal common law under the oversight of the federal judiciary.

We need to put some sense into this process. We need to stop this mad spiral of ever-more laws. At some point, a country has existed long enough to have matured in its governance system such that a tighter control over issuance of new laws is required than when the country was in its infancy. That’s where we are now.

This proposed “Balanced Law Amendment” offers a good and reasonable solution. It does not try to weigh some subjective criteria for new laws. Instead, it uses the fundamentally objective criteria of numbers of laws. If the government wants to pass a new law, it must repeal an existing one: a one-for-one trade. At first, it could be expected that lots of old, useless laws, say ones passed in the 1800s, would be repealed. Eventually the old, useless laws would be gone (which is progress), and the government will have to weigh carefully the value of a new law against the value of an existing, purposeful law. Only vitally important new laws will be passed, and they will be done efficiently so as not to impact more existing laws than absolutely necessary. What a concept!

2002-11-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

I will be posting a proposed 27th Amendment later today (11/12/02).

The 27th Amendment