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Heinlen in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" introduces the idea of a legislature with 2 chambers. One for creating laws and the other for getting rid of them. T

Heinlen in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" introduces the idea of a legislature with 2 chambers. One for creating laws and the other for getting rid of them. The threshold for creating them being higher. The way it is now, everything is geared towards "doing" things, and credit is received for "accomplishments". Its usually much harder to undo things. It would be refreshing to have specialists in undoing things.

snissn 9y ago
Has that ever been tried in practice?
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  Under Icelandic Viking law, every year one man had to recite the law. (I believe this was given one day.) Anything he forgot to include was no longer the law. Different system, but some thematic similarities.
- derekp7 9y ago
  Wasn't that one of Trump's promises, that for every new regulation, two old ones had to go?
- bzbarsky 9y ago
  Not sure about with laws, but similar things have been tried with regulations. See http://redtapereduction.com/BC_Reg_Reform_Model.aspx http://redtapereduction.com/BC_Reg_Reform_Model.aspx but in brief: * Around 2001, voters in British Columbia elected a government with a specific campaign promise to reduce "regulation" by 1/3. * Initially this was accomplished by among other things setting a rule that for every new regulation introduced two existing ones had to be eliminated. * Then the status quo was maintained by mandating a 1-for-1 rule (each new regulation requires elimination of a existing one). * In 2015, the government of Canada introduced its own 1-for-1 rule. There are obviously complications around what constitutes "one regulation", which neither my summary nor the linked article completely capture.
- kemiller 9y ago
  You could argue that the Supreme Court has the ability to strike laws down but not create them, though in a very limited way.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> The way it is now, everything is geared towards "doing" things, and credit is received for "accomplishments" Repealing a law is doing something, and people frequently point to it as an accomplishment (or goal, if not yet done) if they think the law is unpopular with their constituency.
- tomohawk 9y ago
  Just because it can be explained in that way does not make it so. Getting rid of things is much harder that adding things. We see this in systems all the time. Layers and layers and layers are added, but seldom taken away. We also see this in the law. Probably the last politician who was proud of saying no was Calvin Coolidge. The vast majority of politicians are wired the other way.
  - cocoa19 9y ago
    Sounds like legacy source code. The law needs some serious refactoring.
tooltalk 9y ago
IMO, there should be automatic sunset provision in every law passed in this country, like the one existed for the Patriotic Act, and reviewed, renewed or expired every 5 or 10 years.
- gefh 9y ago
  Great, now there's a legislative breakdown on the week that that the murder law had to be re-passed, and it's legal until Congress resumes...
  - dmix 9y ago
    Why would fundamental laws such as violence or theft need expiry or review? Much like the constitution there should be a baseline and non-aggression seems like an obvious first law.
- tomohawk 9y ago
  Very much agree. It would be great if laws sunset after no more than 10 years if only a mere majority wanted the law. With a super majority, then the law could last, say 50 years. This would allow for more experimentation and for consensus building. As it is now, the law is always in the context "and forevermore, it shall be this way". If the context was, let's try this for a few years and see what happens, it would be a less contentious thing. Without the imposed time limits, partisans grab as much as they can whenever they can. Ancient Isrealite law had something similar with the jubilee. Every 50 years, debt was forgiven and many other things reset. This tended to keep things more balanced.
- saryant 9y ago
  Texas has a form of this. Every state agency (with a handful of exceptions) will automatically be abolished every 5-10 years absent explicit action by the legislature.
  - makomk 9y ago
    Yes, and this resulted in a fairly unpleasant fiasco a few months ago in which the governor of Texas had to call an emergency session in order to renew the Texas Medical Board's existence because a senator had held it hostage in order to try and force through a bill banning trans women from using women's restrooms. (A lot of the national press incorrectly portrayed this as the Texas governor calling an emergency session to ban trans women from women's restrooms. While that was debated as part of the emergency session, it wasn't the goal and the governor made allowing it or anything else to be debated conditional on passing the critical Texas Medical Board renewal - forcing the supporters of the bathroom bill to pass that first and give up their leverage in order to get a bathroom bill vote they would inevitably lose. The national media reporting on this was terrible.)
taneq 9y ago
While I don't disagree, I feel compelled to point out that in the same book he also introduces the idea of shoving people out of an airlock for being rude to you.

snissn 9y ago

Has that ever been tried in practice?

thaumasiotes 9y ago
Under Icelandic Viking law, every year one man had to recite the law. (I believe this was given one day.) Anything he forgot to include was no longer the law. Different system, but some thematic similarities.
derekp7 9y ago
Wasn't that one of Trump's promises, that for every new regulation, two old ones had to go?
bzbarsky 9y ago
Not sure about with laws, but similar things have been tried with regulations. See http://redtapereduction.com/BC_Reg_Reform_Model.aspx http://redtapereduction.com/BC_Reg_Reform_Model.aspx but in brief: * Around 2001, voters in British Columbia elected a government with a specific campaign promise to reduce "regulation" by 1/3. * Initially this was accomplished by among other things setting a rule that for every new regulation introduced two existing ones had to be eliminated. * Then the status quo was maintained by mandating a 1-for-1 rule (each new regulation requires elimination of a existing one). * In 2015, the government of Canada introduced its own 1-for-1 rule. There are obviously complications around what constitutes "one regulation", which neither my summary nor the linked article completely capture.
kemiller 9y ago
You could argue that the Supreme Court has the ability to strike laws down but not create them, though in a very limited way.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> The way it is now, everything is geared towards "doing" things, and credit is received for "accomplishments" Repealing a law is doing something, and people frequently point to it as an accomplishment (or goal, if not yet done) if they think the law is unpopular with their constituency.

tomohawk 9y ago
Just because it can be explained in that way does not make it so. Getting rid of things is much harder that adding things. We see this in systems all the time. Layers and layers and layers are added, but seldom taken away. We also see this in the law. Probably the last politician who was proud of saying no was Calvin Coolidge. The vast majority of politicians are wired the other way.
- cocoa19 9y ago
  Sounds like legacy source code. The law needs some serious refactoring.

tooltalk 9y ago

IMO, there should be automatic sunset provision in every law passed in this country, like the one existed for the Patriotic Act, and reviewed, renewed or expired every 5 or 10 years.

gefh 9y ago
Great, now there's a legislative breakdown on the week that that the murder law had to be re-passed, and it's legal until Congress resumes...
- dmix 9y ago
  Why would fundamental laws such as violence or theft need expiry or review? Much like the constitution there should be a baseline and non-aggression seems like an obvious first law.
tomohawk 9y ago
Very much agree. It would be great if laws sunset after no more than 10 years if only a mere majority wanted the law. With a super majority, then the law could last, say 50 years. This would allow for more experimentation and for consensus building. As it is now, the law is always in the context "and forevermore, it shall be this way". If the context was, let's try this for a few years and see what happens, it would be a less contentious thing. Without the imposed time limits, partisans grab as much as they can whenever they can. Ancient Isrealite law had something similar with the jubilee. Every 50 years, debt was forgiven and many other things reset. This tended to keep things more balanced.
saryant 9y ago
Texas has a form of this. Every state agency (with a handful of exceptions) will automatically be abolished every 5-10 years absent explicit action by the legislature.
- makomk 9y ago
  Yes, and this resulted in a fairly unpleasant fiasco a few months ago in which the governor of Texas had to call an emergency session in order to renew the Texas Medical Board's existence because a senator had held it hostage in order to try and force through a bill banning trans women from using women's restrooms. (A lot of the national press incorrectly portrayed this as the Texas governor calling an emergency session to ban trans women from women's restrooms. While that was debated as part of the emergency session, it wasn't the goal and the governor made allowing it or anything else to be debated conditional on passing the critical Texas Medical Board renewal - forcing the supporters of the bathroom bill to pass that first and give up their leverage in order to get a bathroom bill vote they would inevitably lose. The national media reporting on this was terrible.)

taneq 9y ago

While I don't disagree, I feel compelled to point out that in the same book he also introduces the idea of shoving people out of an airlock for being rude to you.