Tag: legislation

Idaho’s Regulatory Reset

The Portly Politico1 Comment

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The big, exciting news in conservatism this week is the sunsetting of all of Idaho’s state regulations.

It’s a curious situation:  all of Idaho’s regulations sunset annually, but the Idaho State Legislature usually renews all of them as a matter of course.  This year, after a contentious legislative sessions, the legislature failed to reauthorize the regulations, so the entire body of state regulations expires on 1 July 2019.

Libertarians and small government conservatives are rejoicing, and this retirement is, indeed, revolutionary—it’s essentially an opportunity to “reset” the State’s regulatory regime, starting from scratch.  That will provide a great deal of opportunity to reinstate what worked in a regulatory sense, and to keep the rest of the chaff on the threshing floor.

The Mercatus Center’s piece on the Idaho situation also points to another welcome change:  the burden of proof now shifts to new regulations, rather than those seeking the repeal of old ones:

Governor Brad Little, sworn into office in January, already had a nascent red tape cutting effort underway, but the impending regulatory cliff creates some new dynamics. Previously, each rule the governor wanted cut would have had to be justified as a new rulemaking action; now, every regulation that agencies want to keep has to be justified. The burden of proof has switched.

An enduring frustration for legislators seeking to cut regulations must be the “Helen Lovejoy Effect“:  constant emotional appeals that cutting or revising this or that rule will breed dire consequences of catastrophic, apocalyptic proportions.  The Idaho legislature’s fortunate lapse in consensus has flipped the script.

Another item of note here:  it’s intriguingly paradoxical how legislative disagreement and gridlock ultimately brought about an opportunity for real reform.  While most legislative gridlock seldom ends with such dramatically positive results, this situation demonstrates the usefulness of hung legislatures:  sometimes, getting nothing done is preferable to getting something destructive done.

From the perspective of liberty, a government not taking action is often the better outcome.  That’s why conservatives were so rankled when President Obama promised to govern via executive fiat (“I have a pen and a phone”) on the grounds that congressional gridlock necessitated such drastic action.  The Framers of the Constitution baked inefficiency into the cake:  our national legislature is supposed to act slowly and deliberately.

Of course, the total repeal of all regulations is not all sunshine and unicorn hugs.  Contra hardcore libertarians, some regulations are useful, and their benefits far exceed their costs (although the opposite is often likelier).  The challenge for Idahoans is to figure out how to get back the useful regulations without reinstating the corrosive ones.  To quote the Mercatus Center again:

The main constraint now facing Idaho state agencies is time—they could use more of it. Regulators have just two months to decide which rules should stay and which should go. With more time, they might be able to tweak and modernize those regulations deemed necessary; instead, many rules may simply be readopted without changes.

So, in the haste to reinstate beneficent regulations, the detrimental ones could also get thrown back in.  If that happens, Idaho will have squandered a virtually unprecedented opportunity to remake its regulatory regime into a more streamlined, pro-liberty apparatus.

If, however, Idaho can pull it off, it will serve as a model to other States looking to streamline their regulatory agencies and services.  That’s a promising outcome, and one that all lovers of small- and limited-government should endorse.

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Model Bills: Trust, but Verify

The Portly Politico2 Comments

I came across this expose from USA Today about model legislation, the practice of a think-tank or industry lobbyist writing legislation that can be introduced in copy-cat form across multiple States.  It argues that this “copy-paste” approach to legislation undermines democracy and benefits corporations.

After skimming the piece, I think USA Today’s concerns are way overblown.  The article’s main issues seem to be the following:

  • Legislators aren’t dreaming up bills organically, but using pre-written bills that are handed to them
  • These bills have misleading titles that don’t do what they advertise
  • It’s not fair introduce legislation this way because…?

Sure, we should want engaged legislators working on our behalf.  But lobbying for legislation isn’t anything new, and it would make particular sense for a think-tank to write up a generic version of a bill that could be adapted to different States’ local conditions.  If anything, I don’t want legislators dreaming up too many new laws:  who knows what wacky stuff they’d produce?

As for the misleading bill titles, isn’t this true for most legislation?  The “Affordable Care Act” didn’t make healthcare any more affordable.  In fact, it didn’t have anything to do with health care, per se, but health insurance.  For that matter, newspapers routinely publish misleading headlines, the articles of which often contain the exact opposite meaning of what the headlines blare.

The USA Today piece looks at several pieces of legislation, including various “right to try” bills, a national version of which President Trump ultimately signed into law.  That law allows patients with severe medical conditions to try drugs that aren’t yet tested.  That’s a brilliant piece of legislation; why wouldn’t you want that copy-pasted to every State in the Union?

The piece notes that corporate lobbying groups use this “model bill” approach the most, followed by conservative groups.  It makes sense that conservative groups would focus on their advantage in State legislatures around the country, rather than trying their luck with Congress; it’s also consistent with conservatism’s emphasis on federalism.

The only model bill that seemed unethical in the piece was one involved shielding companies from mesothelioma lawsuits.  The bill’s name misleadingly suggests it’s about protecting against asbestos, when it’s really designed to pay mesothelioma sufferers out of an asbestos trust before they can file suit against a company.  USA Today breathlessly points out that most victims of the condition succumb in under a year, and don’t get a chance to get their money.

With all respect and love to the folks suffering from mesothelioma, I’m not exactly losing sleep over a bill that seeks to limit ambulance-chasing litigation.  What’s wrong with being paid from an arbitration pool?

Regardless, while the piece is interesting—it’s worth a skim—it’s the same kind of breathless, pearl-clutching, “democracy-dies-in-darkness” pabulum that the media loves to serve up.  If model bills benefited progressive policies, would they be causing such a fuss?

Yes, we should hold our elected officials more accountable, and expect them to do their due diligence.  If they’re approached with one of these bills, they should read it carefully, and weigh it against the needs and desires of their constituents.

Otherwise, this model bill situation seems like a non-issue, or only a very minor one.  My takeaway:  trust, but verify.