Currently the laws that are written are not read (in full) by those people voting on them. This is a common practice, it isn’t illegal or immoral. However, laws were never meant to be so freaking impossible to read or understand.
"“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.” - James Madison
The laws of today sure as hell don’t feel like Madison was worthy of being listened to or we wouldn’t be in the places we are today.
Personally, I feel like (in our haste to get something down) we are trying to cover whatever law it is so completely that they are too long, too convoluted and are not being read by those who are supposed to be reading them. An yet, they still aren’t covering what they are supposed to cover.
If laws were less elaborate and not as lengthy, perhaps our Congress would lower themselves to actually reading the bills?
We have a self fulfilling prophecy happening as those of us with such aspirations go to school to become “politicians”.
Things were never meant to be this way.
Discussion is to be had here for sure. Anybody want to make a go of why we have strayed so far from the founding father’s advice?
The only real answer I can fathom is corruption. If the government is so corrupt, why do we put up with it?
I think that laws are complicated for two real reasons:
(1) the world is complicated (much more complicated than in the day of Madison–a hundred times as many people, many times more wealth, airplanes, cars, the internet, etc, etc), and laws are trying to do nuanced things. Simple laws don’t always do what they are drafted to do—complexity is, sometimes, necessary to avoid a law being avoided, or misinterpreted.
(2) we aren’t starting afresh every year. Instead of creating a new system from scratch (and that’s just a non-starter practically), we have to write new laws to fit into a now-existing system of laws. That may mean that a bill to change what looks like one thing from a policy point of view (say, for example, to rationalize student loans in a way that can be explained by one sentence) requires changing three, or six, or twenty existing statuory provisions that must be amended to have the required effect. (for example, there will be laws regulating loans, laws regulating lenders, laws on how student loans are treated in bankruptcy, tax laws, etc, etc).
How is the educated person (but no real experience in the political realm) supposed to accomplish anything in the Senate or House?
Clearly, we can agree that the founding father’s wouldn’t have wanted lifetime politicians. No?
If the existing laws were written properly the first time (and were simple instead of complex to begin with) we wouldn’t be sliding down the slope we are on.
If one reads a bill, of course it is going to be complicated. They often amend an existing body of laws. If a bill were to be totally comprehensible on its own because it doesn’t amend the existing body of laws, the odds are that we would quickly end up with a patchwork of confusing laws embodied in the US Code.
For the most part, the US Code is pretty readable. It still requires some expertise in the subjects at hand, but an individual with a decent education can read most of the US Code and get a pretty good idea of what’s going on. I encourage you to check out the US Code, rather than focusing your complaints on the readability of bills.
I also encourage you to check out the Volkh conspiracy link above: it is a pretty well-written, simply explanation of why laws get complicated.
Legislators read the bills. They have a staff that goes over them line by line. They have groups involved that will do the same and inform them . There are times like the "Patriot Act " or TARP when there was very little time allowed.
These acts are being argued in committee daily. There is plenty of input and discussion. These laws are not born in an explosion and dropped into the voting immediately ,very often. You know whats in the Health Bills. I know whats being discussed. It will not be a huge surprise to anyone.
I understand that which is why I covered that in my OP, sir. “They” themselves do not, however. If the laws are so complex as to require a ‘staff’ of people to read them to you, it is my hypothesis that they are too long and/or complex.
This is a bit of a strawman argument. Whose to say that a law is “too complicated”. Does a peacock have “too many” feathers?
Do you have a specific example of a law that is too long or convoluted?
Also keep in mind that laws are written in a very specific and precise technical language.
Let me also add that some of these bills are long and complex because the ARE long and complex. Here is a PDF of the Emergency Economic Stabalization Act of 2008. It covers a lot of shit. If I asked you to write a specific report on fixing the US economy, how many pages would you need?
I read the link.
I can understand the need to cover bases when writing laws. It doesn’t follow that they need to be in such depth that it requires a degree to understand them and a staff to read them for you.
You shouldn’t kill people, ever. Not even when they sleep with your wife, or hit your brother, or rape your sister.
The sentencing can be argued about in court. How does that need to be complex?
I’m a little skeptical that the laws were so simple in Madison’s time, either. There seems to have already been a pretty sizable professional legal class (of which Madison was part), and the reading I’ve done about 18th century Britain makes me think the English system that the colonies inherited was actually pretty convoluted.
I don’t have a particular law in mind, however the older health care bill being 1000+ pages springs to mind. That is a lot of damn pages.
I understand that the laws need to be well thought out, we ll written and debated about. Which is why I think some of the debate ought to include trimming it down in a way as to make them ‘simple’
Well, of course ‘simple’ will be a subjective term depending on who you ask. Madison was just warning the assembly to be careful when going forward. I just happen to agree with him.
So your proposal is to have shorter, less specific laws, thereby giving the courts greater latitude to interpret and apply laws in the absence of clear direction from the legislature. Is that correct?
Ah, Madison, one of those Founding Fathers who spent his whole life in politics. But he’s not a lifetime politician… he’s a lifetime statesman, right?
Not so subjective, actually, since Madison offers a definition of what he means in the quote you give in the OP. But I don’t think we’ve really strayed from his position.
Here’s the ways-and-means health care bill(pdf) you mentioned. It’s 1,000 pages, but double spaced, has huge margins, big font and with a lot of indicies and tables and definitions. I think it still meets Madison’s definition, a resonabally intelligent and motivated (and slightly masochistic) person could read it through in a reasonable amount of time and understand its meaning.
Plus, note the HealthCare reform bill addresses a lot of different concerns regarding healthcare. One could easily break it up into a law that addressed medical effectiveness research, a law that set up a public option, a law that expanded medicaid coverage, a law that set up subsidies, a law that set up an insurance exchange…etc,etc. Its all one piece of legislation, but its not true to say its one big 1000 page law.
I’m not seeing the strawman, but the OP contradicts himself a couple of times. I agree with him on at least one point: that many laws are so complicated that there is little chance of non-politicians and lawyers understanding them. There are a couple of good reasons for that which have already been detailed here.
However it’s also true that some laws have been ruled unconstitutional over the years due to overbreadth and vagueness. Laws need to be thorough to work. But to balance that, they need to be comprehensible, or they will not be practical. And it’s bad news for everyone if laws are not made clear.
What if they’re about to rape your sister?
What if they’re about to rape you?
What if they’re about to kill you?
What if you think they’re about to kill you, but you’re actually making a reasonable mistake?
What if you think they’re about to kill you, but you’re actually making an unreasonable mistake?
What if you kill them by accident?
And so on and so forth. It’s astounding to me that you believe that you can come up with better legislation off of the top of your head than our lawmakers have over centuries of working on them. For every big, broad rule that you’re ready to proclaim, there are real people – lots of them – whose lives are going to be irretrievably altered by the interpretation of that rule.
Certainly there’s a lot to be said about the ways laws get made and the choices that legislators make when drafting them, but it’s ridiculous to say the rule should be X, full stop, and they should never be complicated because that’s too much of a hassle. The world’s a complicated place, and governing people is complicated business. As Marley points out, the Constitution actually takes the opposite approach to yours - due process of law requires that the average citizen be given notice in advance of exactly what kinds of conduct are outlawed:
Note there which direction the requirement is heading in – it must be “explicit enough.” The concern is over the danger of not providing enough detail, not the other way around.
Since everyone seems to believe that bills will, simply by necessity, but pretty long and complicated affairs, can we also agree that it would be a good thing to give people—legislators and the public alike—ample time to read the final versions. Obama seemed to think this was a very good idea when he was campaigning, claiming that he would wait five days before signing any bill (he hasn’t). Why don’t we wait the five days, oh heck, I say wait a full 28 days. Given the tool of the internet and the number of eyes that today could go over a bill and find problems with it, why not take advantage of it?
Look at the health care bill. It was pointed out that illegals weren’t as restricted from care as they thought, so they went back and tweaked the bill. That was the process working well. But I think there should be ample time to read the final version of a bill. These things take months if not years to craft, why the sudden rush at the very end? What would be the downside of waiting 28 days? Or five? Why did Obama think it was such a good idea as to campaign on it? Additionally, why hasn’t he lived up to it?
That’s how it works in the Legislature of Saskatchewan. The general rule is that policy bills are introduced in the fall sitting, and go through second reading (debate in principle), but not any further. Then in the spring sitting, they go through committee and third reading. The idea is that gives the Opposition several months to review the bill, and then they can raise detailed questions in the committee.
What should be astounding to you is your inability to comprehend my post. I never said I could propose legislation better than what we have currently.
Is rape against the law? Is defense from harm a good thing? Can you prove it?
Self preservation has always been a justifiable homicide, why would it change?
What constitutes “justifiable”?
If it was accidental, then it isn’t murder ya know?
You misconstrue the simplicity of the law, sir.
Murder is a relatively easy one to argue. It’s simple enough to define what constitutes “justifiable homicide” and it sure as hell wouldn’t take 500 pages (double spaced) in legal mumbo jumbo either.
As far as the necessity of making laws more and more complex as they take into account laws that have come before, I assert, that the former laws should have been more simplistic in their origins. We don’t need a whole subset of laws governing us. The government seems to think that if their isn’t a law about it, people will do it.
Seat belts would be a law, to me, that is clearly unconstitutional. Does it save people from their own stupidity? Sure. Do we really need to be told to be safe?
Wow, no need to get snippy. You’re being challenged on what you’re posting, and urged to defend your proposal – there’s no personal insults flying around here.
So in any case, I would like to reiterate my earlier question: if you are in favor of shorter, more general laws, then it follows that you would prefer to give courts more latitude in interpreting laws, correct?
As in, a judge would be given much greater latitude in determining what “justifiable homicide” would mean given a particular set of circumstances.
No, but we should be told that The constitution restricts federal lawmaking power, not (in general) state lawmaking power, and that there is no federal law that mandates you actually use a seat belt–the laws that make you wear a seat belt are universally state laws. (federal law does mandate cars have seat belts, but not that you actually use them).
Or, do you have some justification for how seat belt laws are unconstitutional that applies to state lawmaking? Please share if you do.