Focus on Education And the Champion Bill Writer is…

It appears the Senate and the House are in a race to see who can write and introduce the most bills. A recent newspaper article mentioned names of various Senators and Representatives with the number of bills they introduced. The House even went so far as to name a champion bill writer.

While it is true the Legislature is elected to make laws which will help the citizens improve their lives, it appears when a group of lawmakers continue to write a plethora of bills far in excess of what the community needs or can absorb, the whole thing becomes a farce. It is imperative that we question if anyone there understands the principals of laws and their effects on the lives of the people affected by this mad rush for laws and more laws!

Do we need hundreds of bills in a brief one or two year period? What about the hundreds, or is it thousands, of laws previously passed by earlier Legislators? Is our community so lacking in regulations that it warrants so many bills? Are we so lacking in community spirit that everything we do must be regulated? Is anything left for the citizen to think through and act as a free person?

No, I am not criticizing the Legislators for doing their job. However I am pleading for more rationality and civility in the making of bills. But it appears that quantity, not quality, is the order of the day. A bill is introduced and presto — it becomes law. Then when it is implemented, it is discovered that several grave errors were made with this new law. So back to the conference room where the bill is either amended or rescinded.

The legislator should be primarily concerned with law as a direction of human conduct. The wise lawmaker understands that law is divided into divine and human, natural and positive, private and public, moral and political, to name only a few of the traditional distinctions. Many great writers have pondered on the nature of laws for centuries. Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Kant, and Hegel are only a few who have tried to define law. Others have extensively written about the relation of natural law to civil or municipal law.

Our Legislators are concerned with creating “human laws” as opposed to “natural laws.” As a result they should become interested in the distinction between government by men and government by laws. This includes a thorough understanding of constitutional or political law. Before a law is passed its effects should be assessed on the individuals affected by it. Will it put more shackles on peoples’ fast disappearing freedom or will it allow them more freedom to live a fuller life? Unfortunately, most of the laws being currently enacted are adding more fetters and slowly strangling freedom in man.

In this brief discussion, it is not my intention to ridicule anyone. My sole intention is to make our Legislators more aware of the compassion required, the enormous complexity of law, and skill and art necessary for promulgating laws for the governance of fellow citizens. Introducing shallow bills for the sake of gaining a name or a high score should not be the wise legislator’s goal. What we the citizens seek are a few laws which show reflection and quality of their intention.

Anacharsis, a Scythian philosopher about 600 B.C., wrote: “Written laws are like spiders’ webs, and will like them entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful easily break through them.” Legislators should consider more carefully what they are passing. Laws should help, not bind, men. Give us quality, not quantity, laws.