Comment by tanker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tanker | Hacker News Reader

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I think a sunset on all laws would be helpful. It would probably require a change to other parliamentary procedures or the representatives wouldn't have enough time to vote on everything. I expect the US would struggle with this more than most countries. The alternative is less government due to political gridlock. Perhaps that would result in more of these programs being managed at the state or local level.

Initially, every time a soy farmer support bill died due to a sunset time it could be a media issue. Some big bills will continue to die or be renewed amid a media frenzy; however, our capacity for sensation is limited. Many bills would die quietly. A delightful side effect could be the generation of enough actual news to keep the media busy reporting on useful topics.

A maximum word length or similar requirement sounds good; however, it might not be practical. If you prevented disparate pieces of legislation from being voted on as a single law, a limit on length might work and promote transparency.

As a citizen of a democratic country, I love the idea of mandatory sunsets. I hate how easy it is for legislators to pass laws but how very difficult it is to repeal them.

But, beyond that, I'd like to see the law be self-repairing. There's a legal concept that goes back to the Romans that ignorance isn't a valid defense. Maybe it worked well back then, but not when the legal code expands as it does in modern democratic countries. The law should be a manageable size that is largely understood and agreed to by everyone. In that vein, I've always wanted a built in system to 'garbage collect' laws that were dated or misunderstood. In a simple implementation, a government department would poll the citizen body for understanding or agreement with a law. If the polling doesn't reach a threshold, then the law is purged.

You mean in addition to jury duty, citizens would have legislation duty? Seems legit.

Sunsets don't have any effect in practice. All sorts of US laws have sunset provisions, and unless they've become somehow politically contentious they get renewed without debate every year.

At least the legislature has to spend some time renewing them. Everyone bears the cost of having to know and follow all the laws; lawmakers having to spend the time to renew every law would be a better alignment of incentives.

Except that it's all rolled into one bill. Which they haven't read (they don't actually read any of the bills).

If they spend more than about ten minutes on the whole exercise I'd be shocked.

Yeah, you'd have to combine it with a length limit on the text of bills.

Require that one of the people voting reads the entirety of the bill aloud in front of the whole group before 'yes' votes are valid?

Doesn't make the length boundary sharp, but still provides a limit of sorts.

Less restrictive than the one in Gulliver's Travels!

edit: whoops someone already said this

> they get renewed without debate every year

That should simply not be allowed. It's the legislative equivalent of handing out an inspection sticker without actually inspecting the car.

Yep. Idea: congress shouldn't be able to pass a law without reading every word of it aloud. If you weren't there to listen, you can't vote.

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