Does a law have to have a valid reason?

KyJim said:
Many laws do have such prefatory statements explaining their basic purpose. Sometimes they are codified and sometimes they are not, in which case you have to go back to the original bill. These prefatory statements are normally only referred to when a portion of the statute is unclear or ambiguous. The plain language of the operative portions of the statute will normally prevail over prefatory language unless a plain-language interpretation creates an absurd or nonsensical result.
Click to expand...
Years ago, when I was chair of my town's planning and zoning commission, we were drafting a new zoning regulation. It was intended to correct what we on the commission regarded as chronic and severe overstepping of authority by the zoning board of appeals (a separate body, whose role is to grant exceptions from zoning regulations in cases of demonstrable hardship). The ZBA had proven (to us) that they couldn't read English, so I wanted to include a prefatory clause in the new regulation in the hope that it make wake up to morons on the ZBA.

Our professional planning consultant advised us that it wasn't customary to include such prefatory clauses in zoning regulations. I held out, the regulation was adopted with the prefatory clause ... and the ZBA went merrily along, ignoring both the express intent and the operative language of the regulation.
 
the regulation was adopted with the prefatory clause ... and the ZBA went merrily along, ignoring both the express intent and the operative language of the regulation.
Click to expand...
Beyond stupid. Sounds like deliberately thumbing their noses.
 
KyJim said:
Beyond stupid. Sounds like deliberately thumbing their noses.
Click to expand...
Probably was, at least in part.

But never disregard the power of stupid. I have previously mentioned, on more than one occasion, the video I saw on YouTube several years ago showing part of a public meeting of some county board of commissioners -- somewhere. They were debating the passage of a new anti-gun law. During public comments, a member of the audience came to the microphone and reminded the commissioners that there was no point in passing their new law, because the state had preemption in the field of firearms so the new law would be unenforceable.

To which one of the commissioners responded that he didn't care if it was unenforceable, he was going to vote for it anyway ... because "We've got to do something."

You can't develop that level of stupid -- it has to be genetic.
 
Last edited:
Does a US law have to have a valid reason and effect to be legal?
Click to expand...

I would argue that this is a loaded question (no pun intended). Going on the premise that lawmakers are inherently lazy as human beings, they would not go out of their way to arbitrarily makes laws. So when they make laws, they have reasons for doing so.

Now the question is, are the reasons valid? This is the loaded part because the answer is Yes and No. Pahoo touched on this more succinctly. Validity is a perspective. If you support the law, it has validity. If you don't support it, you aren't apt to claim it has validity. In fact, quite the opposite.

Pistolero cited an interesting example above and questioned why the number was 6. He could have raised several other questions as well as it is a convoluted law, but is it valid? Absolutely, at least from the perspective of the proponents at the time when they were trying to put the law into place. Is it invalid? Absolutely, at least from the perspective of anyone who wants to own more for reasons outside of the exceptions.

There is no law that I know of that requires lawmakers have reasons for passing laws where the reasons must meet or exceed some sort of validity standard. I seem to recall some passages (state laws?) stating that laws must be enacted for the 'good of the people' or some such language, but as a level of valid reasoning, that is so vague as to being virtually useless.

Theoretically, if a lawmaker perceives that there is a need (justified validity) for there to be a law and to sell that perception to fellow lawmakers, then a law will come about.
 
Double Naught Spy said:
I would argue that this is a loaded question (no pun intended). Going on the premise that lawmakers are inherently lazy as human beings, they would not go out of their way to arbitrarily makes laws. So when they make laws, they have reasons for doing so.

Now the question is, are the reasons valid? This is the loaded part because the answer is Yes and No. Pahoo touched on this more succinctly. Validity is a perspective. If you support the law, it has validity. If you don't support it, you aren't apt to claim it has validity. In fact, quite the opposite.

Pistolero cited an interesting example above and questioned why the number was 6. He could have raised several other questions as well as it is a convoluted law, but is it valid? Absolutely, at least from the perspective of the proponents at the time when they were trying to put the law into place. Is it invalid? Absolutely, at least from the perspective of anyone who wants to own more for reasons outside of the exceptions.

There is no law that I know of that requires lawmakers have reasons for passing laws where the reasons must meet or exceed some sort of validity standard. I seem to recall some passages (state laws?) stating that laws must be enacted for the 'good of the people' or some such language, but as a level of valid reasoning, that is so vague as to being virtually useless.

Theoretically, if a lawmaker perceives that there is a need (justified validity) for there to be a law and to sell that perception to fellow lawmakers, then a law will come about.
Click to expand...
But that doesn't mean that that law will survive constitutional review. All laws must, at minimum have a rational basis. Laws passed out of animus (harming a group) typically lack a rational basis, as do laws enacted for protectionist reasons.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top