A Modest Proposal

Last January the South Carolina Senate passed a rule regulating the naming of bills introduced in that chamber.  The rule prohibits senators from attaching the names of people or animals to bills.  The idea is that bills should stand or fall based on their policy merits, and not on cheap emotional appeals.

Over the years we have seen many such bills introduced in both state and federal legislatures.  A 2013 article in USA Today listed a brief sample of them: “Megan's Law and Jessica's Law, the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act. There's Kendra's Law, Leandra's Law and Lauren's Law, three Jacob's Laws and at least three Laura's Laws.”  On January 5 Kate’s Law, establishing a mandatory 5-year prison sentence for illegal aliens who reenter the country after being deported, was introduced in the U.S. Senate for the third time.

Legislators claim that putting the names of victims on legislation is a way to honor and remember them.  But I submit that the real reasons are far less high-minded.  A politician who sponsors or supports legislation bearing the name of a sympathetic victim, particularly a child, can count on fawning press-coverage.  There will be a grieving family urging people to support the bill and praising the legislator’s concern and courage in championing their cause.  On the flip side, opponents will be dissuaded from publicly opposing or objecting lest they appear insensitive.

The idea behind appropriating a victim’s name for a legislative title is to shut down debate before it begins.  Kate’s Law, one of the most recent manifestations of this phenomenon, is a case in point.  The legislation was actually dreamed up not by any member of Congress, but by Bill O’Reilly.  O’Reilly maintains his audience by feeding them a steady diet of preening moral outrage.  In 2015 O’Reilly took the story of Kate Steinle, a woman fatally shot by an illegal alien who had already been deported five times and beat it like a drum.  He proposed Kate’s Law and would demand of every Senator and Representative who appeared on his show to declare whether he supported it or not.  The format of a television talk show doesn’t allow for a detailed examination of the merits of the bill, the potential cost of incarcerating all offenders for five years or any unintended consequences.  And O’Reilly isn’t interested in those things anyway.  One is either fully in support of Kate’s Law or one is opposed to getting justice for Ms. Steinle and her family and is probably in league with the illegal alien criminals.

If our legislators were mature grownups, they would eschew such obvious stunts.  I suggest that the South Carolina Senate’s rule be adopted by all 101 legislative chambers in the Union.

But there are other objectionable trends in bill-naming – like acronyms.

Remember the Patriot Act?  Its full name is the USA PATRIOT Act.  That’s an acronym for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.”  The Washington Post counted 364 bills introduced between January and August 2015 with acronyms in the title.

On September 25, 1973, Representative John N. Erlenborn, Republican of Illinois’ 14th Congressional District, introduced H.R. 10489, the Multiprotection of Employee Retirement Income and Tax Act (MERIT).  Acronyms have been polluting our federal statutes ever since.  Noah Veltman of noahveltman.com has done an exhaustive analysis of Congressional acronyms from that date until June 2013.  He found that the percentage of bill titles containing acronyms began to take off around the turn of the century, peaking in 2010.  He also identified the worst offenders in terms of number of bills sponsored with acronyms (Charles Schumer – 42) and percentage of bills sponsored with acronyms (Rep. Suzanne Bonamici – 33%).  The most recent entry in the roll of dishonor appears to have been introduced this past week: the No Taxpayer Revenue Used to Monetize the Presidency Act (NO TRUMP), sponsored by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR).

Obviously I’m not the only person put off by this.  In fact, on April Fool’s Day in 2015, Congressman Mike Honda half-jokingly introduced the Accountability and Congressional Responsibility On Naming Your Motions Act (ACRONYM).

Unlike with bills named after victims, the problem with acronyms isn’t so much that they’re emotionally tendentious; they’re just stupid.  They’re juvenile and they bring disrespect and ridicule down on the nation’s legislature.  They have to go.

The final thing I’d like to eliminate from bill titles is adjectives.  Yep, adjectives.

Although not as flagrantly abusive as victims or acronyms, adjectives can still steal a rhetorical base and sway people who lack the time, the inclination or the understanding to read the actual text and analyze a bill properly.  I have in mind laws like the Clean Water Act.  Who’s against clean water?  But just because some politician hangs that title on a bill doesn’t meant that’s what the bill does.  The legislation might clean the water.  It might just be 435 water projects spread evenly around the nation’s congressional districts.  It also might be a Trojan Horse giving federal Vogons the power to harass every citizen with so much as a bird bath in his back yard.

I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

Come to think of it, let’s just eliminate bill titles altogether.  Just give them numbers – like the song “Secret Agent Man” or the residents of the Village in The Prisoner.  If the press wants to give bills names it can always name them after their sponsors, in the time-honored tradition of Dodd-Frank, Gramm-Rudman-Hollings or Smoot-Hawley.