Still More Needless Laws

Still More Needless Laws
by Michael R. Allen

Tuesday, October 26, 1999

Alas, Congress has not given up its penchant for passing redundant and useless laws. Congressmen know better than to vote against their own sustenance. Without a federal state to manipulate in order to keep their posteriors in the leather chairs of the Capitol, our representatives would have to find meaningful employment. And most of them aren't up to it.

Congressmen and Senators don't have a great deal of actual power over the federal state. Previous legislators have seen fit to hand military powers to the president, regulatory powers to the bureaucrats, and social policy to the judges. Congress does vote on bills and pass bad laws, but it does not set the agenda for government any more. The largest function Congress serves is handing out graft and bounty.

Still, since the constitutional provision for elections has not been removed yet, the congressmen must court the public as well as the special interests. To best woo the hearts of the voters, most congressmen will pander to the lowest political instinct.

Remember the 1994 elections? Republicans around the nation saw Americans who wanted to be left alone by the government. So they made up a contract that vaguely echoed the sentiments of the nation, and won the House and Senate. What ever became of that contract?

Why didn't the conservative Republicans govern as they said they would? Most of them would rather be well-paid, deal-making congressmen than tough it out in a free America. Also, when they got to Washington DC, these newcomers met the entrenched interests there that must be dealt with. Few could resist the temptations to go along to get along. After all, they didn’t really intend to change America or anything crazy like that.

So this month Congress passed three bills all of which either: a) please pressure groups or donors, b) pander to bland sentiments no voter opposes, or c) make the more earnest congressman think that he is doing good. All three will probably become law soon, if they do not become law by the time I finish writing this -- President Bill Clinton is just as weak as the congressmen when faced with political... temptations.

The most recent of the three bills passed by the House was H.R. 1887, a bill to ban the depiction of animal cruelty. Of all the federalizedcrimes created in American history, this might be the most unnecessary: all fifty states expressly ban cruelty to animals. Prohibiting the willful possession of any record of such cruelty is ludicrous given that the acts of cruelty are already prosecuted.

H.R. 1887 becomes horrendous when one reads the fine print: it allows the courts to determine the intent of the possessor of the depiction. The law also is so broadly-written it may someday be used to take fishing shows on TV. One shouldn't laugh at this notion, considering the unintended consequences of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The House and Senate have both approved S. 800, which makes 911 the national emergency number for all telephones and cellular phones. This bill is as unconstitutional and needless as the anti-cruelty-depiction bill. Most localities use 911 for emergencies as it is, and it is the cellular phone providers who should have to program their phones to take advantage of the number, not local government at the command of the feds.

The third of these bills, H.R. 2130, is the Hillory J. Forias Date-Rape Prevention Drug Act, which passed the House. This bill is the archetype of the federalized anti-crime statutes that have come under attack from Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The states have already worked to ban this drug, and rape itself is illegal in every civilized place. Federal interdiction is not going to diminish the drug’s use, or even guarantee harsher punishment of those who use it. Yet, who is going to oppose banning the date rape drug at the federal level?

My admiration for Representative Ron Paul of Texas is solid in light of the fact that he was the only member of Congress to vote against the date-rape drug bill. One knows what sort of political charges he will have to weather for his consistency, at the same time his 400 or so pious colleagues prance around as the saviors of the female gender.

For those other members of Congress, H.L. Mencken’s words are fitting: “Congress consists of one-third, more or less, scoundrels; two-thirds, more or less, idiots; and three-thirds, more or less, poltroons.” Mencken was correct, though he might have cut out “less.”

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