Comments on: Post the Documents!

By: Harry Arthur

Harry Arthur — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 12:23:01 +0000

I don’t know about putting a phone book in the middle of these laws but I do know they stuff a lot of pork in the middle of virtually every law they pass.

Since when do most courts really care what the legislators knew about the contents of any particular law. After all, “the constitution is what the court says it is”, right? Works the same with all laws.

By: Patterico

Patterico — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 01:51:09 +0000

So, if I can show that a mistaken draft of a law was presented to a legislator before he voted on it, the law is invalid?

Nah. But the fiction employed by the courts when interpreting a law is that the legislators knew what each obscure provision contained, and affirmatively decided to include it.

By: Kevin Murphy

Kevin Murphy — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 00:15:47 +0000

So, if I can show that a mistaken draft of a law was presented to a legislator before he voted on it, the law is invalid? You could put a phone book in the middle of some of these laws and no one would notice.

By: Patterico

Patterico — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 21:50:21 +0000

The story makes that point.

Of course, legislators almost never read the laws they vote on, either. Doesn’t matter; in each case, the necessary fiction is that the entire thing was read.

By: Shredstar

Shredstar — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 21:46:56 +0000

Of the 950,000 who signed that petition, I’d be surprised if more than 5 actually read the whole thing.