Why I’m Leaving the Senate | Hacker News Reader

Why I’m Leaving the Senate

nytimes.com

17 pointstimr17 comments

I can't shake the feeling that these are just talking points. He certainly sounds nice, but ultimately his proposals come down to new restrictions on free speech regarding campaign finance (any 'reform' short of a constitutional amendment would most probably be useless anyway, as there are always ways around, as witnessed before) and why is it filibusters are only impeding progress when your own party is in power?

Edit: Just back in Nov 09, he was still in favor of the filibuster. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/evan_bay...

They [congress] are patriotic, hard-working and devoted to the public good as they see it, but the institutional and cultural impediments to change frustrate the intentions of these well-meaning people as rarely before. It was not always thus.

Yes, as we all know, the US was designed to be run top down by a rapidly moving federal government. We didn't create checks and balances and a government limited by a constitution, because we wanted to make sure that our well meaning overlords could change things on a dime!

Currently, the decision to begin debate on a bill can be filibustered, followed by another filibuster on each amendment, followed by yet another filibuster before a final vote. This leads to multiple legislative delays and effectively grinds the Senate to a halt.

Sure, one filibuster per law, provided the Senate stops completely rewriting laws during the debate process.

True story: there was once a law called To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers, and for other purposes. Somewhere along the line, the Senate decided to completely replace the text of that bill with a $700 billion giveaway to the financial services industry.

Under Baye's proposed rule, this nonsense couldn't even be filibustered. Great plan.

The argument that limitations to campaign finance are a free speech issue makes sense. What doesn't make sense is treating corporate and other organizations as persons with all or even most of the rights of air-breathing U.S. citizens. Corporations and unions and other such groups are legal entities which exist only for the public good. The state created them, and the state can regulate them in any way which benefits the public good.

Edit - And regarding enforcement, I would just encourage stiff penalties. An organization found guilty of multiple instances of finance fraud could be charged with RICO and it's leaders thrown in jail. So much for enforcement.

And once again the overriding impression I get is that "bipartisanship" means the other guys should do what I want and not make such a big fuss. A pox on both your houses.

I wish our founding fathers had inserted a sunset clause into the constitution that would require each new congress to read every previously passed bill and re-vote on them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_clause

God, no! How on earth is Congress supposed to re-read tens of thousands of statutes? It's a nice sentiment and certainly a principle that should get adopted for "temporary legislation/measures" but, generally speaking, it's hugely impractical.

How are you suppoed to enter into contracts if you don't know what the law of the land is going to be in four years time? Transaction costs would increase enormously.

"How on earth is Congress supposed to re-read tens of thousands of statutes? It's a nice sentiment and certainly a principle that should get adopted for "temporary legislation/measures" but, generally speaking, it's hugely impractical.

How are you supposed to enter into contracts if you don't know what the law of the land is going to be in four years time? Transaction costs would increase enormously."

Contracts are mostly based on Sate law. Also,some states have Sunset provisions and have a standard package of laws they pass at the beginning of each year.

As for the impracticality of so many thousands of statutes, that's rather the point.

As for passing a standard package of laws at the beginning of each year: Then why use sunset clauses at all, if legislators don't even think about it but just pass it along in one sweep every year?

I wholeheartedly agree that nearly every developed country is over-regulated, especially the US, having a different approach to regulating (narrowly worded, long statutes vs short, general principles) than some European legal traditions. Alas, the majority of people don't want to get strangled by regulations but at the same time want to have lots of industries regulated. I think the best shot is to inform them about the consequences of over-regulation.

I agree with you, except that I quibble that perhaps the Congress shouldn't have enacted "tens of thousands of statutes" in the first place.

Maybe just make them read all of them before getting on with business? I.e. something to motivate them to reduce the word count (without of course allowing unelected bureaucrats to take up the slack with regulations that have the force of law unless struck down in the courts).

I think that's his point. We already can't know what the law of the land is.

Exactly. There are just way too many laws enacted currently, we need less. More than a few government agencies should likely be merged or just dissolved as well.

How many years of study does it take to know the law of the land now? Transaction costs are already enormous.

It's only hugely impractical because it should have been in place from the beginning.

I'm not sure. Every large enough system ends up needing a lot of boilerplate to tune it to work correctly. I think if such a law existed most decisions would go through the (non-elected) supreme court or some independent autarchys than through congress, and what would be sunseted each four years would be the statements creating such institutions.

The problem with Congress is not that they don't do enough. It's that they try to do too much.

The senate was different, more united, in the past, but so too was the country.

Really?!?!!??? That doesn't agree with my knowledge of US political history at all. Perhaps you could be more specific with dates?

Makes me think of the impact that new media has had on the country. Used to be that you saw news either because (a) a national newspaper published it or (b) your local newspaper published it. News was basically bland and was created by central organizations that had the resources to have their own printing-houses.

With digital publishing and therefore 0 barriers to publishing content, long tail news is now here, so you read/watch what you're interested in, and you find a community in your shared interests with others. I think this has had a major impact on the country -- it's perhaps in the little things that no longer unite us, like the small-talk about the day's news.

Maybe not though. Maybe according to this train of thought we should be more united because we all see the exact same headlines on Google News, CNN.com, NYTimes.com, all at the same time.

Maybe the lack of unity is due to other things, more non-Caucasians in the country for example. White Americans make up 75% of our population, vs a historical trend of 80-90%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_American, under Sub-Heading "Demographic information". It's human nature to fear or stay away from people who aren't like you or who don't look like you.

Now that I think of it I'm sure it's a combination of factors. Usually is.

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