Credit cards and drug prescriptions must periodically be renewed or they expire. The same policy ought to apply to laws and regulations. I’ve argued in the past that every statute should automatically become null and void after a fixed period of time — 15 years, say — unless lawmakers expressly vote to reauthorize it. Gardens that aren’t regularly weeded grow chaotic and ugly. So do statutory codes. That’s why legislators should be obliged to review their handiwork on a regular basis, and affirmatively renew laws, agencies, and policies that are still relevant and beneficial. Those not renewed should lapse.
Mandatory sunset clauses aren’t a new idea. As far back as 1789, Thomas Jefferson suggested a system under which every law “naturally expires at the end of 19 years.” It should be clear “to every practical man,” he wrote in a letter to James Madison, “that a law of limited duration is much more manageable than one which needs a repeal.”
Which brings me to John Kerry and the Logan Act.
The Boston Globe’s Matt Viser reported on Friday that the former secretary of state has been engaged in “shadow diplomacy” to preserve the Iran nuclear deal he negotiated on behalf of the Obama administration. President Trump, National Security Adviser John Bolton, and the new secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, are all sharply critical of the Iran accord, and Trump may announce this week that the United States is pulling out of the deal. To prevent that from happening, Kerry and a group of lieutenants who worked with him at the State Department have been pushing aggressively in the opposite direction — meeting with high-ranking foreign officials, including Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.
What does this have to do with repealing obsolete laws? The Globe explains:
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05.21.2024