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Think that through for a second. The Oregon legislature only meets for 6 months in odd numbered years and a month and a half in even years. In that time they

Think that through for a second. The Oregon legislature only meets for 6 months in odd numbered years and a month and a half in even years. In that time they barely have time to address pressing issues of the day, do we really need them to be rubber stamping a bunch of laws for weeks every time? It’s a terrible idea.

krisoft 3y ago
> The Oregon legislature only meets for 6 months in odd numbered years and a month and a half in even years. You are saying that as if that is some in-mutable fact of life. I work the whole year. Odd and even years included. Why don't they? > do we really need them to be rubber stamping a bunch of laws for weeks every time? Maybe they will think harder about how to achieve the same level of service with less and better laws then.
- comte7092 3y ago
  Why do you think less laws are magically better? Assuming you’re a programmer, why don’t you just write fewer lines of code? Maybe we should just have every line of code automatically delete itself after a specified period of time.
  - lockhouse 3y ago
    If a law has been effective and is still relevant it should be easy to get it renewed. Lines of code is actually a great analogy. The Linux kernel frequently removes old, irrelevant code that is poorly maintained and is no longer useful.
    - lozenge 3y ago
      In my experience, many issues have been caused by removing code based on assumptions it isn't used/has no effect/has been superseded, while there aren't many issues caused by letting dead code hang around a bit.
    - comte7092 3y ago
      Old laws get overwritten, edited, and removed all the time.m, after review and discussion.
      - lockhouse 3y ago
        Not often enough.
        comte7092 3y ago
        And stale code isn’t removed often enough either.
    - toast0 3y ago
      I don't know about Oregon's legislature. But other legislatures sometimes have trouble getting any work done, even the easy work. Most likely, they'd just resort to blanket renewing everything, in order to get to the real work, if it were a year that work was doable. And in years where there's no appetite for getting things done, it will probably take the whole session to get the renewals done.
    - pseudalopex 3y ago
      Linux kernel maintainers remove code when convinced it is a good idea. Legislators remove code when convinced it is a good idea. Linux kernel code does not expire. Laws should not expire if the analogy is great.
  - some_random 3y ago
    I mean, I think everyone kinda agrees that in general having less code is better. That said, a better analogy would be to imagine a world in which every program you ever push to prod, every docker container, every EC2 box, all by default were around forever. Making them automatically stop themselves is a way to keep system complexity down and make sure each component is actually, you know, doing something useful.
    - comte7092 3y ago
      I definitely agree that having a simplified legal code is a good thing. What I don’t agree with is the idea that you should just slash away at it with a machete rather than cut away with a scalpel. Making changes to laws is extremely politically fraught and challenging, the real world is messy, and we need laws. For as much flak as people like to give our political system, America has succeeded for having fairly effective and good government, not in spite of it.
    - kelseyfrog 3y ago
      The law is a monolith. It doesn't work like docker containers. It works like a codebase. If anything it works like a series of patches. Imagine a codebase where each commit has an expiration date. If some patches are left to expire, I think we can would be in agreement that at the very least we would have no expectation that patch application would still be successful - leaving us with textual issues. At the very worst, we have no guarantee that the resulting body of law would be consistent, or result in a consistent society. We already have potential loopholes when folks are careful with drafting laws. This is asking for exploits. There is no static analysis for political economy.
  - krisoft 3y ago
    > Assuming you’re a programmer, why don’t you just write fewer lines of code? Oh I'm working very hard on that. Code is liability. > Maybe we should just have every line of code automatically delete itself after a specified period of time. I actually proposed that. We should just try to randomly delete lines of code and if it doesn't break any tests just commit it. And I was only half joking.
- denlekke 3y ago
  i just read the wiki and apparently it's considered a Citizen Legislature and is a part time job, with corresponding pay and most people have another job i imagine the original goal was to have "regular people" vs "career politicians" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Legislative_Assembly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Legislative_Assembly
  - comte7092 3y ago
    This. The even numbered year session was added relatively recently (i.e. within the last 20 years.) And the minority party still complains when major when major work is done during that period of time, because “that’s not what it is for”.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    Has it made it so "regular people" can afford to run for office though? In practice I don't think it works the way its being presented like this. You still need to be wealthy enough to kick off a campaign, raise awareness for running for office etc. I don't think this has meaningfully made the Oregon legislature more representative of the "average" person
- sidewndr46 3y ago
  Because they have to campaign the rest of the time?
  - comte7092 3y ago
    State legislators spend relatively little time campaigning. From anecdotal experience most people don’t even know who they are or what they do.
imgabe 3y ago
Maybe they could meet more often? What are they doing the rest of the time?
- comte7092 3y ago
  It’s not up to them, it’s what the Oregon constitution prescribes.
  - imgabe 3y ago
    Then amend the constitution. Maybe it made sense when representatives had to travel to the capital by horse and buggy, but it's 2023 now. There's no reason to have such a restriction.
- ghaff 3y ago
  They're probably working another job given they're paid $33K/year. A lot of state and local political positions don't pay much.
philwelch 3y ago
Set the laws to expire in ten years, offset in tranches two years apart, so the legislature only needs to renew 1/5 of the laws every other year. If that isn't manageable, maybe there are too many laws!
- comte7092 3y ago
  Governance is complicated.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    The idea is to reduce complexity by stopping the tendency of laws to accumulate. If 10 year sunsets are too aggressive, maybe try 20 year sunsets instead. Most legislation is amendment and revision of existing law anyway, so it wouldn’t necessarily hurt to make the legislature consciously review existing law on a regular cadence. And if someone gets a bug up their ass about legalizing self-serve gasoline, that would just reset the sunset clause on the gas station laws and not have to worry about it again for a decade or two.
caturopath 3y ago
Hell if I know. Work will fill whatever's allotted to it. Is 6/1.5/6/1.5... "enough" for what they should be doing now or "enough" to do what they should be doing in a world where all laws sunset? How would I know from looking at the number of months they're in session? If they only met 1.5 months every year, would it be obvious to you that they didn't have enough time to "address pressing issues of the day"? If they met 6 months every year, would it seem to you like they must be spinning their wheels a bit?
- comte7092 3y ago
  Take some time and learn what it takes to conduct legislative activities. This comment reads similar to people saying “why does it take so long to add a button to a website! It seems so simple to me I don’t know why you’re just wasting your time! What do we even pay you for?”
  - caturopath 3y ago
    I didn't say that it seemed like too much time, I questioned that it was clearly the exact right right amount of time, saying equally as much about the potential of needing more time than less.
s1artibartfast 3y ago
The Nevada legislature beats that. It's limited to 120 days and meets every other year

krisoft 3y ago

> The Oregon legislature only meets for 6 months in odd numbered years and a month and a half in even years. You are saying that as if that is some in-mutable fact of life. I work the whole year. Odd and even years included. Why don't they? > do we really need them to be rubber stamping a bunch of laws for weeks every time? Maybe they will think harder about how to achieve the same level of service with less and better laws then.

comte7092 3y ago
Why do you think less laws are magically better? Assuming you’re a programmer, why don’t you just write fewer lines of code? Maybe we should just have every line of code automatically delete itself after a specified period of time.
- lockhouse 3y ago
  If a law has been effective and is still relevant it should be easy to get it renewed. Lines of code is actually a great analogy. The Linux kernel frequently removes old, irrelevant code that is poorly maintained and is no longer useful.
  - lozenge 3y ago
    In my experience, many issues have been caused by removing code based on assumptions it isn't used/has no effect/has been superseded, while there aren't many issues caused by letting dead code hang around a bit.
  - comte7092 3y ago
    Old laws get overwritten, edited, and removed all the time.m, after review and discussion.
    - lockhouse 3y ago
      Not often enough.
      - comte7092 3y ago
        And stale code isn’t removed often enough either.
  - toast0 3y ago
    I don't know about Oregon's legislature. But other legislatures sometimes have trouble getting any work done, even the easy work. Most likely, they'd just resort to blanket renewing everything, in order to get to the real work, if it were a year that work was doable. And in years where there's no appetite for getting things done, it will probably take the whole session to get the renewals done.
  - pseudalopex 3y ago
    Linux kernel maintainers remove code when convinced it is a good idea. Legislators remove code when convinced it is a good idea. Linux kernel code does not expire. Laws should not expire if the analogy is great.
- some_random 3y ago
  I mean, I think everyone kinda agrees that in general having less code is better. That said, a better analogy would be to imagine a world in which every program you ever push to prod, every docker container, every EC2 box, all by default were around forever. Making them automatically stop themselves is a way to keep system complexity down and make sure each component is actually, you know, doing something useful.
  - comte7092 3y ago
    I definitely agree that having a simplified legal code is a good thing. What I don’t agree with is the idea that you should just slash away at it with a machete rather than cut away with a scalpel. Making changes to laws is extremely politically fraught and challenging, the real world is messy, and we need laws. For as much flak as people like to give our political system, America has succeeded for having fairly effective and good government, not in spite of it.
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    The law is a monolith. It doesn't work like docker containers. It works like a codebase. If anything it works like a series of patches. Imagine a codebase where each commit has an expiration date. If some patches are left to expire, I think we can would be in agreement that at the very least we would have no expectation that patch application would still be successful - leaving us with textual issues. At the very worst, we have no guarantee that the resulting body of law would be consistent, or result in a consistent society. We already have potential loopholes when folks are careful with drafting laws. This is asking for exploits. There is no static analysis for political economy.
- krisoft 3y ago
  > Assuming you’re a programmer, why don’t you just write fewer lines of code? Oh I'm working very hard on that. Code is liability. > Maybe we should just have every line of code automatically delete itself after a specified period of time. I actually proposed that. We should just try to randomly delete lines of code and if it doesn't break any tests just commit it. And I was only half joking.
denlekke 3y ago
i just read the wiki and apparently it's considered a Citizen Legislature and is a part time job, with corresponding pay and most people have another job i imagine the original goal was to have "regular people" vs "career politicians" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Legislative_Assembly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Legislative_Assembly
- comte7092 3y ago
  This. The even numbered year session was added relatively recently (i.e. within the last 20 years.) And the minority party still complains when major when major work is done during that period of time, because “that’s not what it is for”.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  Has it made it so "regular people" can afford to run for office though? In practice I don't think it works the way its being presented like this. You still need to be wealthy enough to kick off a campaign, raise awareness for running for office etc. I don't think this has meaningfully made the Oregon legislature more representative of the "average" person
sidewndr46 3y ago
Because they have to campaign the rest of the time?
- comte7092 3y ago
  State legislators spend relatively little time campaigning. From anecdotal experience most people don’t even know who they are or what they do.

imgabe 3y ago

Maybe they could meet more often? What are they doing the rest of the time?

comte7092 3y ago
It’s not up to them, it’s what the Oregon constitution prescribes.
- imgabe 3y ago
  Then amend the constitution. Maybe it made sense when representatives had to travel to the capital by horse and buggy, but it's 2023 now. There's no reason to have such a restriction.
ghaff 3y ago
They're probably working another job given they're paid $33K/year. A lot of state and local political positions don't pay much.

philwelch 3y ago

Set the laws to expire in ten years, offset in tranches two years apart, so the legislature only needs to renew 1/5 of the laws every other year. If that isn't manageable, maybe there are too many laws!

comte7092 3y ago
Governance is complicated.
- philwelch 3y ago
  The idea is to reduce complexity by stopping the tendency of laws to accumulate. If 10 year sunsets are too aggressive, maybe try 20 year sunsets instead. Most legislation is amendment and revision of existing law anyway, so it wouldn’t necessarily hurt to make the legislature consciously review existing law on a regular cadence. And if someone gets a bug up their ass about legalizing self-serve gasoline, that would just reset the sunset clause on the gas station laws and not have to worry about it again for a decade or two.

caturopath 3y ago

Hell if I know. Work will fill whatever's allotted to it. Is 6/1.5/6/1.5... "enough" for what they should be doing now or "enough" to do what they should be doing in a world where all laws sunset? How would I know from looking at the number of months they're in session? If they only met 1.5 months every year, would it be obvious to you that they didn't have enough time to "address pressing issues of the day"? If they met 6 months every year, would it seem to you like they must be spinning their wheels a bit?

comte7092 3y ago
Take some time and learn what it takes to conduct legislative activities. This comment reads similar to people saying “why does it take so long to add a button to a website! It seems so simple to me I don’t know why you’re just wasting your time! What do we even pay you for?”
- caturopath 3y ago
  I didn't say that it seemed like too much time, I questioned that it was clearly the exact right right amount of time, saying equally as much about the potential of needing more time than less.

s1artibartfast 3y ago

The Nevada legislature beats that. It's limited to 120 days and meets every other year