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I say we go with an even more radical solution, based on the chief protection against that harm in medieval Iceland. Let's require that the Speaker of the Hous
by einhverfr 13y ago
I say we go with an even more radical solution, based on the chief protection against that harm in medieval Iceland.
Let's require that the Speaker of the House recite from memory 1/4 of the federal code (including regulatory laws) every year, so that over the course of 4 years, the entire code of laws gets recited. Anything accidently omitted gets stricken from the law books.
Congress should open with this. And if one human cannot be expected to know the law, then nobody else should be either.
- ama729 13y ago"Ooops forgot murder!" (or if you are more cynical, "lobbying regulation")
- einhverfr 13y agoWouldn't be a good idea to forget that one in medieval Iceland.... Now, keep in mind that manslaughter was relatively minor at the time, but secret murder was really, really bad. The difference was that manslaughter was where a killing was announced and taken credit/responsibility for. If you hid the fact, that was cause to have everything you own taken by the victim's family and have any legal protections you might have had in the past revoked, meaning anyone could kill you and nobody could give you shelter.
- dllthomas 13y agoAs ama729 hinted at but didn't call out explicitly, this would give the Speaker unilateral authority to overturn any law. That's tremendous power in one individual.
- thaumasiotes 13y agoIt's not so different, conceptually, from the pardon power.
- dllthomas 13y agoAn interesting point. The pardon power is presently a check on the legislative, though. Vesting it in the person in charge of the legislative would be a tremendously significant change in ways entirely unrelated to the desired pressure towards fewer laws. I'm not going to say this couldn't possibly be a good idea, but it'd need very close scrutiny and probably other changes.