Should laws have built-in expiration dates by default?

What will happen when a law expires? The easiest thing to do—the thing that takes the least thinking, writing and arguing—would be to simply re-instate it. This means that this system, when the principles of efficiency are inevitably applied to it, will actually <i>encourage</i> the permanence of silly laws—laws will simply be made as monolithic as possible, so they only have to re-instate one thing, that everyone can pretend they read already.<p>Now, instead, imagine a boundary on the <i>space</i> the law may take up. If set near (or below!) the current size of the law, this would encourage something lawmakers never, ever currently do for its own sake: refactoring. It would also encourage clarity, strict and manifold definition of terms (to allow later reuse), and many other strange and exciting (though not necessarily ethically sound) ideas.

Consider a bicameral legislature where newly elected representatives serve a four year term in the lower body. Their sole responsibility is the review/renewal of existing laws. Every law must be renewed every four years.<p>After completing their term in the lower body, the representatives graduate to serve a four year term the higher house. Here, they are entrusted with the power of making new laws.<p>Elections are staggered (similar to the US sentate), so every year one fourth of the members are elected, one fourth move up, and one fourth retire. This way, the chambers have institutional memory and transitions are smooth.<p>Both houses have the power to change the legislative topography of the nation. Because newly elected representatives serve in the lower house, when citizens vote to change the direction of the country, the first response to public opinion is the removal of existing laws. Only after serving a term in the lower house can laws be added.<p>To make this kind of system successful, there might need to be a legal review process that demands small, unbundled laws. Or perhaps a simple word count like @derefr and @mseebach suggest.<p>I guess the fact that we even think about this stuff pretty much means we're geeks. =)

Built in expirations do exist, they just are not required: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_provision" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_provision</a>

I think so...in principle. But imagine how this would work in our partisan legislature - I'm sure you can think of equally awful possibilities regardless of your individual political affiliation. While some bad laws would die a suitable death, some good ones would be made into political footballs as well.<p>And it would create havoc in the courts. Recall that the Icelanders settled most of their disputes via blood feuds and something like weregeld. Doing that in the modern age would result in many arguments about retroactive punishment and/or restitution for people convicted under expired laws. you might be found guilty, punished, declared innocent, compensated, and then declared guilty after all and owing the money back.

As a counter example, I present Florida. Florida is a no-fault driving state. A couple years ago, the law that decided this expired for about a month before it was renewed into law again. This sort of last minute law wrangling is a mess and requires millions of people reconsider their insurance temporarily. It's a "great idea," but it's terrible in practice.

I’m a little worried about this opening up new opportunities for political brinksmanship. “If the Majority Leader wants my vote to renew the law against dumping toxic waste into the harbor, he’d better let me get my way on the farm bill.”

Anyone knows where that law comes from? "A person may not walk around on Sundays with an ice cream cone in his/her pocket." It makes me kind of curious

Yes, of course they should, but this will be exactly as meaningless as the other tools in your "democracy" toolkit.<p>I see what you're getting at, but you are waaaaay late to the party.....the democracy thing has already been figured out.<p>But, it's always good to hear from citizens. The government likes people to feel they have a voice in the way their country is run!

I'm extremely dubious about the claim that it's harder to repeal old laws than to create new ones. Why would this be the case?<p>The big problem I see is that it makes it harder to know what the law says at any given time; that's an inevitable result of more change. Change isn't necessarily bad, but in this case, change for change's sake undoubtedly is.