The Sunset Amenment

This is a concept I’ve posted before, but I figured I’d try to repeat it in article format to see if that suits it better.

• Preamble

  For far too long, our Congress has passed far too many laws, with far too many of these laws being direct infringements upon the rights of each American citizen. These laws are too numerous and too long. And the volume of American federal law poses many problems.

  1. Redundancy and excessive complexity: There are laws against assault, and then laws against “hate crimes”, which include assault. There may be one law for a specific crime, but then the penalties were amended in 3 subsequent laws. Circumstances like this make it near impossible for a regular American to perform the due diligence required to understand the laws that he may be subject to and must obey. If every single American must understand hundreds of years of often contradictory laws that often reference each other, then it is unreasonable to expect Americans to understand that law, let alone abide by it.
  2. Undermining our Legal process and confidence therein: With such an impossibly long list of laws that are considered “in effect”, it becomes inevitable that some laws become forgotten and cease to be enforced. These laws cease being culturally, legally, or politically relevant, yet remain legal in all official contexts. This creates multiple corollary issues: A. This produces a lack of confidence in the American citizen that the older laws that SHOULD be enforced ARE being enforced. It causes a reasonable American to wonder if there is a bias or political malintent associated with the informal decision of which older laws should continue to be enforced. B. This also produces proverbial “landmines” where a political or legal actor can maliciously discover a forgotten and long irrelevant law begin to selectively enforce it for one’s own individual or political purposes. A bad actor, in this context, could work to resume the enforcement of a previously unenforced and forgotten law against enemies that could not have been reasonably expected to know that they were violating a law at all.
  3. Resistance to correction of errors: “Nothing is more permanent than a temporary government program”. Entire departments, bureaucratic institutions, and other government systems and policies continue to last well beyond the necessity of their initial intent. These systems exist both as a burden on the American taxpayer—requiring him to continue to fund organizations that have long since outlived their utility for him—and as a reminder that rights, once lost, will continue to be infringed even when the folly of the law that infringed on those rights has become evident. One needs to look no further than laws against the private ownership of alcohol distillation equipment, which were created as a part of the federal prohibition on alcohol which has since been overturned for almost 100 years, to see that laws cannot be written to last indefinitely if we are to retain our Republic indefinitely.

  It is for the above reasons that we, the American people, present this Amendment to the Constitution to our Congress, to pass it on our behalf, to save this Republic.

• Amendment Text

  No law passed by Congress, as per Article 1 of the Constitution shall remain in effect for a period of 15 years or longer. Each law, when it has reached the 14th year since it has passed, shall be brought before each chamber and be reviewed on the grounds of its necessity, intent, and results. Between the 14th and 15th year, that law may then be amended, expanded upon, or removed from the body of American law. For a law to remain in effect past its 15th year, Congress must vote on and pass the law anew as per Article 1, sections 1 and 7.

  The body of laws currently in place when this Amendment is passed, will be divided into three groups by the Senate by the first Monday in December after its passage. The first group of laws shall require review by Congress as per the first paragraph of this Amendment within 6 years of its passage and will cease to be law if not passed anew by the 7th year. The second group shall require review by Congress within 13 years after the passage of this Amendment and will cease to be Law if not passed anew by the 14th year. The third group will require review by Congress within 20 years of the passage of this Amendment and will cease to be Law if not passed anew by the 21st year.

• Rebuttal of Criticisms

  • “This is what we need term limits for”
    1. Laws, not politicians: The issue is not politicians, it is laws. For sure, there are plenty of bought-out and corrupt politicians. But a good politician can work for his or her entire career and still be unable to overturn a bad law from well before his or her time.
    2. Forever campaigns: the time a politician needs the most money and is at most risk is when they are first running for office. Setting term limits (especially short ones) will create a vulnerability to compromise in our elections by allowing powerful interests even more opportunities to buy elections that would have otherwise not have been available to purchase. It will also create a PAC industry that professionally produces new politicians beholden to them.
    3. Lame-Duck Radicalism: the primary motivation for politicians to do well by their constituents is to gain re-election. Term limits remove this potential entirely and, thereby, remove consequences for pushing unfavorable radical policy at the end of their final terms. This is even worse when such radical actions might help secure some sort of quid-pro-quo deal with a private entity for the lame-duck politician to move into after their term is complete. And then, once the radical bill is passed, it is near permanent, like almost all other government institutions, even though the politician themself had a term limit.