This is a simple question, but I believe that it should be debated. If you look at the present congress, there are only a handful of engineers, scientists, medical doctors, or businessmen. The overwhelming majorities are lawyers. Regardless of what we think of lawyers, the fact is that legal training does not include science. Hence, I believe that lawmakers who have no scientific training are doing us (the public) a disservice. Take for example, the experience of congress in dealing with cancer. Back in the 1970’s. Congress passed an act (I don’t remember the name) which said that ANY substance which elicited cancer (in test animals) cannot be used in materials intended for human consumption. Logical? Heck no! A good scientist would realize that:
(1) Carcinogens are DOSE-dependant. Many substances exist naturally in food, which in high concentrations would cause cancer.
(2) Cancer (as a disease) follows the Pareto principle-that is, a large number of cases result from a relatively small number of causes. Thus, it would be much more cost-effective to simply ban all tobacco products, than worry about aflatoxins in peanut butter (which result in an EXTREMELY small number of cancer cases.
So, I put it to you. I believe that the US would be far better served, if we elected scientists rather than lawyers to congress. Of course, this will probably NEVER happen!
The job of the Congress is to enact laws, not to conduct research. To that end, people trained in the history, conduct and practice of law are probably pretty qualified to enact laws. If those laws are to regard or affect an area of scientific inquiry or a specialized industry, they should rely on the testimony of experts in those fields (just as the courts do) in drafting the laws.
I would have no problem with seeing a greater variety of fields of study represented in Congress. But I don’t think the lawyers are the problem; the politics are the problem.
No offense Pldennison,
But lawyers are definetely the problem with politics. I think there should be a law that if you are lawyer you cannot be a politician. Lawyers don’t produce anything get people in there that have produced something that have ran a business or worked for one. Business is what makes this country go not lawyers and not career politicians.
Uh, Jodi…
You might want to take this one.
Lawyer jokes aside lawyers in congress aren’t the problem per se. The problem is having so many lawyers in congress.
Campaign rhetoric about being there to serve their constituents aside most people serve their own interests first and foremost. Congressmen and women know that they may not always have a job as a congressperson and may have to fall back on the field they were originally trained for. As a result you won’t find much in the way of meaningful tort reform even though it is very much needed. The current system of law encourages lots of lawsuits for big bucks. Lawyers will not bite the hand that feeds them.
This problem would also exist if we had nothing but scientists up there or business people. If it were all scientists you might see a great deal more money being spent on research regardless of whether or not such research was the wisest way to spend our tax dollars. If it were all CEO’s up there you might find a bunch of anti-union legislation and protectionist policies put into place.
I’m making no comment on the merits or lack of merits for more research or union busting and the like. I’m merely pointing out that when something like congress is dominated by one particular group of people you can expect their agenda to get served and protected more than might be wise.
Ideally we would have a broad mix of occupations represented in Congress so many different viewpoints could be represented.
EGKELLY says:
I think you could make this argument when dealing with laws concerning science, just as you could argue that politicians do us a disservice by not being engineers when passing laws concerning engineering, or by not being plumbers when passing laws concerning plumbing. But the fact is that the one thing that Congress is always doing – regardless of the subject matter of the bills – is proposing, debating, and passing laws. The people who know the most about both the process of making laws and the impact of laws once made are – surprise! – lawyers.
Now, I DO think there’s an argument to be made that politicians in general are out of touch with the American general public, but I think that’s because they’re politicians, not because they’re lawyers. And I DO think there’s an argument to be made that we elect too many lawyers to be our politicians, so that other fields are under-represented. But hey – we elect them. If you don’t want a lawyer to be your Congressperson, don’t vote for one.
WILDEST BILL says:
Lawyers do not “produce” anything tangible, it’s true; they perform a service. Doctors don’t “produce” anything, either, nor does any other service profession. Lawyers can and often do run businesses, however; what do you think a law firm is? So even if you limited your Congressional candidates to business-people, you would not succeed in banning lawyers.
In one of his computer science books, Andrew S. Tanenbaum was discussing distributed computing algorithms. His thesis was that one goal of such algorithms was to keep all of the CPUs busy as much as possible, thereby maximizing the algorithm’s efficiency. He likened CPUs to lawyers:
“Idle lawyers tend to become politicians, so it is in our best interest to keep them busy.”
Lawyers in congress are the ultimate conflict of interest. How can they be trusted to pass laws that won’t be used by themselves and others in their profession? This really brings new meaning to the term self service.
so farmers shouldnt vote on farm legislation? (there are several farm owners in the house and senate)
doctors (yes there is one in the senate) shouldnt vote on health care issue?
business owners shouldnt vote on issues that affect their business in anyway? (OSHA…taxing…etc…)?
Heres a thought…you don’t like the lawyer in congress that represents your district?..complain about him to others…support other candidates…or run for office yourself
WTF?
“Are lawyers in government a problem?”
Lawyers in government is the problem!
Sheesh!
What a BGO (Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious)!
Lawyers are all considered scum because there arent laws limiting what they can do. IMHO therefore kill all lawyers in congress and then stick their heads on poles to warn other lawyers away.
I don’t know why you all pick on lawyers. It’s only 90% of them that give the rest a bad name.
Zenster, mon ami, let me give you some context for the line you reference: it’s spoken by a conspirator in the course of conspiring to overthrow the legitimate government. If you want to do away with legitimate government, throw the entire system into chaos, and establish a dictatorship, what’s the first thing you do? You kill all the lawyers. Doesn’t have quite the same demeaning ring when you know the context, does it? Forgive my asperity, but I get sick of explaining this to people who love the line but apparently have never bothered to read the play.
Grain Farmer, as someone else has asked, how can anyone be trusted to pass laws that are not in their own self-interest? Listen, when Senator Fat-Cat hammers through a multi-million dollar highway project for his state, he’s not doing it because he’s a lawyer but because he’s a politician and his political future may rise or fall by the amount of pork he succeeds in bringing to his state.
Asmodean, I would reply to this if I had the slightest idea what you mean, but I don’t. All I, as a lawyer, can do that you can’t do is practice law. I went to school to do that, took a big fat test to do that, am required to remain licensed and keep up with new developments in the law to do that – all required by law. What do you mean by “laws limiting” what they do? What laws limit what doctors can do, or farmers?
Forgive me **Jodi]/b], it just has such a nice ring to it. I know that it is usually quoted out of context, but I couldn’t resist. Fortunately, I’ve dealt with just enough decent lawyers to know that they’re not all bad.
Right now though, I’m dealing with one that has notified me of his clients intention to sue. After a phone conversation with the guy I sent him my eye witness account of the scene as I had filed with the authorities and that is the last I’ve heard from him despite incessant phone calls and notices.
I know that he’s under no obligation whatsoever to notify me of anything. Yet, I have been as helpful as I can so that he does not proceed in accordance with his client’s instructions without any chance of success. Does this get me an ounce of effing respect?
[John Belushi]
"Buuuutttttt Nnnoooooooooooooooo!!!
[/John Belushi]
So now maybe you get a better idea of my current disgust with lawyers.
PS: I’ve won just as many cases representing myself as I have being represented.
Jodi, don’t take it personally. By now you know very well it is just a stereotype. We all love to hate lawyers until we need one. of course we hate the lawyer who works for the other side, not the one who works for our side.
Seriously though and trying to interpret the OP; As I understand it the OP is “because lawmakers are mostly lawyers, they make laws that sometimes have little connection to the real world”.
Now, if you had a congress with very few lawyers you could easily make the point that “because lawmakers do not know about the law, they make laws that may be sensible in their intent but bad as laws”. This can even be said of laws which are made by lawyers who are more politicians than lawyers.
Either way you need different groups to work together so the laws can be both sensible in their objectives and well crafted as laws. Oh, if only it were true.
The government has known that science is important to the nation since at least 1863, when Lincoln created the National Academy of Sciences. The NAS and its main operating branch, the National Research Councils, are empowered to report to Congress on matters of scientific import. Check 36 USCS § 150301 et seq. for the statutes relating to the NAS.
It’s not necessary that members of Congress be scientists themselves, so long as they have the means to obtain expert scientific advice when needed; at present, they do have the means so to do.
I find the proliferation of lawyers diturbing because lawyers deal with what can be done rather than what should be done. I think that a few lawyers in a legislature would be helpful, as would a representatives from other viewpoints, but I would prefer to be governed for the most part by people who studied government.
I do agree that most of the problem stems from the political system. If you desire an inefficient design then you have to expect some problems. These representatives are doing what they thinks it takes to keep their privileged status. Lawyers and nonlawyers alike.
If I may be permitted a small hijack, could someone give us some more background on the Shakespere quote? I haven’t read him but I have some familiarity with English history. I’m wondering what type of conspirator it deals with.
I think the legislation you’re thinking of is called the Delaney Amendment. Yes, it is terrible law.
I believe most Congressional committee staffs nowadays include specialists who are there to give professional opinions on even the most technical matters, as well as general counsels who are there for legal work. For example, the Budget Committee staffs are going to include a lot of economists; Armed Services Committee staffs might include anybody from colonels to Pentagon whiz kids to analysts from think tanks.
This is in addition to specialist legislative organizations like the Office of Technology Assessment and the General Accounting Office which exist outside of Committees to do research for the members. The Committee staffs are bipartisan (each party appoints one wing of the staff), while the GAO and OTA are intended to be nonpartisan.
My point is, while lawyers do seem pretty over-represented in Congress, they have historically been shrewd enough to hire specialists to help out with technical stuff. The folks who passed the Delaney Amendment obviously failed. One problem is, a lot of the people who hate it that there are so many lawyers in Congress also hate the “bloated” staffs these people maintain. So they’d rather have these ostensibly uninformed lawyers supported by fewer specialists? What about constituency service? Wouldn’t you like more constituency service from your member? How are they supposed to do that with a smaller staff?
I know I’m getting off topic but I think a lot of criticisms of Congress work directly at odds with other criticisms. “We need better people in Congress, working for less money, spending more time in Washington and more in their home districts, making better laws with less legal training, supported by fewer people!” Do you want fries with that?
Well Jodi i mean like resturants have the food guys:) who check to make sure everything is clean. The lawyers however can just take your money and appear to help. Like immigration, most lawyers don’t have a clue what to do but they take peoples money and tell them to go to the immigration office. There are no real guarantees that a lawyer will do what you pay him to do. Its the same with mechanics, really bad mechanics can basically screw up your car and charge yo for it.
2sense, the quote is from Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, scene ii. The speaker is Dick the Butcher, one of the peasants supporting Jack Cade’s rebellion. Dick says it right after Jack outlines his utopian plans for the new England, including the abolition of money, government controls over food supplies, and so on.
As with so much in Shakespeare, the meaning of the quote is open to argument, but as Jodi points out, the statement is made by an ardent revolutionary, intent on overthrowing an ordered society, based on property rights and law. Dick recognises that lawyers are a mainstay of that ordered society. To implement the revolutionary framework and destroy property rights, lawyers must be eliminated.
As a lawyer myself, I take the line as a compliment, because it acknowledges the basic importance of the lawyer to maintain a society based on law, rather than one based on mob rule.