Single Subject, Descriptive Title (SSDT) *updated 15 Mar 09 2005Z

[Updated text is Green]

A while back, I was perusing some blogs when I came across this question: If you could issue a decree adding a single amendment to the U.S. Constitution, what would it be? I was intrigued. Mostly because there are so very many that I would like to see. For some reason or other, I didn't read too many of the comments to see what others' ideas were - I was probably doing something silly like working - but it really got me thinking. Of all the ideas I had - re-issue the whole constitution with "we really mean it this time" after every section and amendment, eliminate agencies' ability to make rules with the effect of law, clarify just what counts as interstate commerce, or even just make myself king for life - I settled on one idea that I thought was pretty good. I think the most harmful general legal problem we have is that there are too many laws, and they are too complicated. Add to that things like 1,419 page stimulus bills that pass without being read, and what we have is an opportunity for severe abuse. Which is sadly obvious to anybody who has actually tried to read that stimulus bill. So what was my great idea? One topic only in each and every bill. Just one. If there is anything in a bill that doesn't clearly pertain to the subject at hand, it can't pass. If the jerks do it anyway, then the Supreme court is required to immediately overturn it.

Now, I couldn't remember where I read that original question, but since I check Instapundit constantly, I figured there was a good chance I'd find it there. Lo and behold, I found instead a link to a proposed amendment addressing exactly this point! As much as that guy blogs, I should have known that he'd have written about an idea I just had before I even had it. Anyway, the best part is that it met with approval from the Law-professing blogfather. I couldn't find any working links to the actual proposal, but I found a link to the text here. It reads: "Congress shall pass no bill, and no bill shall become law, which embraces more than one subject, that subject being clearly expressed in the title."

I like it a lot. I was originally worried about intentional misinterpretation of the "only one idea" concept, for example by claiming everything in the stimulus bill has to do with "stimulation" and therefore passes muster. But since at least forty states have a related law on the books, it must be well tested. I think that use of the word "subject" is the perfect selection, because different things all related to an economic stimulus would be related, but they would not all pertain to one subject.

Still, that's not quite enough. Even before I found that somebody already had this idea, I had gone further. I don't just want one subject, I want it to be short and simple. I want every bill to be only one page long. We now have so many laws that are over-written, confusing, and contradictory that people are frozen to inaction by fear of breaching the law. Rather than wade through the regulatory swamp that sits between here and entrepreneurial job creation, many a man will instead keep his current lousy job and skip the hassle. The number of times in a week that I hear "I don't know if we're allowed to do that" is frustrating beyond belief. The idea that free people are "not allowed" to do something that isn't clearly harmful to somebody else is one of the silliest and saddest things I've ever heard. If the concept of "not allowed" is not uncomfortable to free people, then they are not really free people at all.

So here is the text as I would write it:
"No bill shall become law unless it can be printed in English, single-spaced, on one side of an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper in a font of 10 points or larger. Any existing law that cannot be printed to conform to this requirement shall be null and void. Each bill shall be read aloud in both the house and the senate chambers. In order to vote on a bill, each senator and representative shall have been present to hear it read aloud in its entirety. This amendment shall not limit the number of times a bill may be read aloud."

I have no doubt that this is not yet perfect. My later section is clearly not written as well as the first part. Brevity is one of the most redeeming features of our current constitution, and I struggle with how to balance that with the specificity that I think it is lacking. Our forefathers intended to leave room for later interpretation specifically because they could not know what time bring. It is a wise idea that they took a little too far, or perhaps our courts have wiggled too far around. After all "shall not be infringed" sounds pretty clear to me, but apparently not to the supreme court. I would prefer if any new amendments were not immediately undermined by a work-around. That's why I want bills read aloud and listened to in this one: So that congresscritters can't just mail in a thousand "yea's" or "nay's" and claim that one big document was really a thousand different bills when we all know it was not. But if you have suggestions for additions, subtractions, clarifications, or if you can just write this one better, please leave it all in the comments. And feel free to continue adding other ideas for later amendments!