Hank.Walker@gauss.ece.cmu.edu (10/30/86)
When I hear statements like "We don't need a law on X, we'll do just fine without it," my immediate reaction is "Why was that law passed in the first place?" Presumably people don't go around passing laws because they're bored. They had a reason, and were able to convince the majority of the legislators that it was a good reason. The child labor laws and laws limiting the length of the work week were passed at a time when robber barons perpetrated all sorts of nasty evils on people. Laws regulating the purity of food were passed in response to Sinclair Lewis's "The Jungle." I was told that Teddy Roosevelt was reading the book while eating a sausage for breakfast. (Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading perhaps a book a day). When he got to the part about how they make sausages, he got so disgusted that he threw his sausage out the window, and had the filth laws passed. Now circumstances may have changed since a law was passed, so that it is no longer needed. We've all heard those jokes about the amazingly strange laws on the books of some cities and states. There are three ways of dealing with such laws: A) ignore them, B) have them automatically expire, or C) have them repealed. Alternative A seems bad, since this breeds disrespect for the law, and allows arbitrary enforcement. B is the "sunset" provision, where the onus is on those in favor of keeping a law, while C puts the effort on those in favor of repealing a law. I'm personally in favor of B, with laws expiring automatically after 10-20 years. Those laws that enjoy widespread support will be extended with trivial effort. Controversial laws will have the debate they deserve, and obsolete laws will disappear without comment. -------