I recently found a column that my uncle, and former publisher, Tom Warden, wrote in 1982 lamenting the number of new laws passed each year by our representatives in Jefferson City and Washington D.C. It is just as relevant today as then. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
————————————————
When Harry Truman was a freshman U.S. senator from Missouri in 1935, a senior colleague delivered himself of some sound advice to the newcomer: “The first six months you are here you’ll wonder how the hell you got here,” said Senator J. Hamilton Lewis, “and after that you’ll wonder how the hell the rest of us got here.”
Almost half a century later, the same thought no doubt distract the minds of newly-made representatives of the people… whether they are in the U.S. Congress or the state general assembly.
While lawmakers at times may wonder in political life, few have any doubt as to “why” they are there. As their descriptive title suggests, they are there to make laws.
And, by golly, they do make laws… with wild abandon.
Here in Missouri these are long-underwear days, when scratching is not only permitted and encouraged, but is looked upon as a symbol of affluence and the mark of one who is keeping warm.
There is considerable scratching going on in Jefferson City, our state capital, with the Missouri General Assembly in session. Not all of the scratching is caused by long underwear, however.
Some of it is the result of the legislative itch… that abiding desire to draft new laws.
The volume of our Missouri laws alone is astonishing. To believe that so much is so wrong that hundreds of laws are annually needed, is totally beyond comprehension.
Are all these new laws really necessary? Probably not. But it is the nature of the lawmaker to make laws; that is how, in his estimation, his performance is judged by constituents out there in the hustings.
My lawyer acquaintances no doubt will take exception to this, but the Congress and most state legislatures are captives of the legal profession.
And these fellows write laws with the zeal of a fast-food chef, turning out as many as possible as quickly as possible… some half done, some overdone, all rather tasteless in substance but decorated with fancy fixings — words — to make them palatable.
It would be a wonderful exercise in legislative restraint if every five years legislatures and the Congress would gather, not to write new laws, but to repeal useless and bad laws.
With the aid of some incentives — say an unpublicized junket to a pleasure-spot in warm climes, at taxpayer expense of course — the dozen lawmakers who propose and are successful at repealing the most laws would be justifiably rewarded.
And at election time, I would rather cast my ballot for someone who voted to repeal a dozen or so bad laws, or who voted to kill proposed laws, than for someone who boasted of adding more legislation to those laws which already burden us.
When Moses, the law-giver, came down from Mt. Sinai, he was armed with Ten Commandments and a hand-full of judgments that were that were to serve as The Law for his people.
But Moses, of course, had no way of knowing that some day there would be a U.S. Congress and numerous state legislatures — brim-full of lawmakers — that would write enough laws to fill enough books to make a mountain as high as Sinai itself.
One must wonder how a legislator is drawn into this race to write new laws. They campaign on promises to cut taxes and reduce the size of government… yet once elected they do their best to write more laws which invariable increase taxes and proliferate governmental influence.
I am reminded of a practice in one of the ancient republics wherein a senator who wished to propose a new law had to stand on a stool in the city square with his neck through a noose and announce his proposed law to the people.
If the law pleased his constituents, the noose was released and he stepped down. If the people were displeased, well, his lawmaking days came to a sudden and perhaps tragic end.
If the same practice were in use today, the necessity to reconstitute the Congress and the state general assemblies would be considerable. And there would be more morticians than psychiatrists in Washington D.C.
Admittedly, that would be cruel and unusual punishment for careless and reckless legislating… but would be more effective than sulfur, red precipitate and a laundry brush in curing the legislative itch.
For the time being, at least, a quinary session of legislative bodies to repeal laws would suffice.
Tom Warden, Publisher Emeritus,
Gasconade County Republican
