Regulatory Overhaul and Review Act (Debating)

[Deus Naturae]

This should be simple enough. Only democratically-elected Senators should be able to enact regulations. I'm sure there will be disagreements regarding which ones we should keep or get rid of, but for now we may as well reassert representative democracy over autocratic bureaucracy so that we can even have those debates in the first place.

[Deus Naturae]

If someone were to build a fence in the middle of my yard, and refuse to justify its construction/existence, I would be justified in tearing it down.

[Deus Naturae]

Nix is correct, regulations are formed both as a consequence of Act of the Legislature, to better specify the operation/management/structure of the Act. The other is delegated legislation that does not require, due to its scale/scope, the consent of the legislature.

I don't think the legislature should write a blank check to bureaucrats to impose regulations that the Senate has no approval over. The People democratically elect Senators to deal with issues, not to delegate that responsibility to unelected bureaucrats that the People have not entrusted with any power via democratic consent.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'm not saying experts shouldn't write regulations. I simply believe the Senate should review those regulations before they can be enacted.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That's a positive assertion. Please justify why the current regulatory system would be superior to the reforms specified in this bill.

[Deus Naturae]

You have ANY idea how many specific regulations there are?  The work of the Senate would grind to a halt if they were expected to sign off every-single-piece of regulation.

Since you bring it up, I'm curious, how many new regulations are enacted each day? I suspect the figure you'll give me may be suggestive of a problem with the current process...

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I don't doubt that most regulators have a firm understanding of the issues they're meant to deal with. But, just because they understand the issue doesn't mean they'll regulate in the public interest. To use an analogy, let's say I work at a store for many years. I know everything about that store and all its exits, entrances, security systems, etc. I could use my deep understanding to prevent an attempted robbery of that store. On the other hand, I could also use it rob the store myself. So, understanding is only half of the equation, and knowledge of any subject can be used for good or bad purposes. In the field of government regulation, that "bad" manifests itself in the form of regulatory capture. This bill wouldn't prevent people who understand the issues from writing regulation, but it would act as a check to ensure that they're using their understanding for good purposes.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Why would they need to "interpret" them...they write them!

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I have a generalized issue with having no idea what regulations affecting my life are, no way to find out what they are, and no way to vote out those who enact them.

[Deus Naturae]

Reading your responses here, one could assume you have a very bad opinion of civil servants. According to you, they would exist just for the sole purpose of robbing good corporations of their hard-earned money, make life as hard as possible for everyone, and then rob everyone of their money. This couldn't be further from the truth.

That's a strawman.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Another strawman. I haven't said anything about personal gain in this thread. The problem I've brought up is regulatory capture.

[Deus Naturae]

Eh, I'll say friendly. No point in wasting time on a vote I'm guaranteed to lose.

[Deus Naturae]

Sponsor, your thoughts on a final vote?

Sounds good.

[Deus Naturae]

Aye

[Deus Naturae]

I oppose this redraft. If Senators don't even bother to vote, that's their problem.

Why would this be unconstitutional?

[Deus Naturae]

Sorry if I came off as overly aggressive in that last post. I am willing to compromise, as long as the core of the bill survives. 

The new version of the redraft is fine with me, assuming that "tiebreaker" just refers to the Senator who casts the deciding vote (not sure what else it might mean but just want to clarify).

[Deus Naturae]

Nay

I don't mind if this passes but would rather maintain the current version.

[Deus Naturae]

I've just become totally apathetic on this Bill... I don't see what it's really going to do, or anything vaguely positive it's going to achieve.

Noting... that we don't actually have text of specific regulations to repeal.

Once this vote is done, I'm moving to table.


ABSTAIN  

The bill states quite clearly that it will set up a thread where people can present regulations for repeal and then have the Senate vote on whether or not to do so. I get that you try to be as vague as possible but if there's something about the bill you don't understand I'd suggest you be more specific.

Also, I don't think you can table a bill that's already been passed.

[Deus Naturae]

Debate should be resumed.

So would a citizen be able to say, "I want Clause 6 removed from Statute Y from 2010" and then the Senate would vote to repeal it? Hmm.

As far as I understood the bill; this would just be for regulations, not bills passed by the Senate, but regulations passed by different levels of administrations. So I would guess no.

But again.... what regulations? Where is the list?

It's true that it may be problematic to find regulations since there are so many complex mandates passed by bureaucrats who rarely inform the public of their doings. That's why I originally structured the bill to place the burden of proof on the advocates of regulations passed without legislative approval. My initial thought was that those defending such a non-transparent regulatory process as workable should be able to find these supposedly necessary regulations themselves if their claims were true. But, the bill was amended.

I don't really get what you're complaining about. If it truly turns out to be impossible to find any regulations passed by regulatory bodies rather than the Senate itself, nothing will come of this.

[Deus Naturae]

I've thought it over and come to the conclusion that the current version would be pretty ineffectual, so I'd actually like to resume debate and try to fix that, though I hope that resumption of debate won't be used for a tabling attempt by those who have no intention of trying to improve the bill.

My idea (which I will introduce in amendment form soon) is to amend the bill to allow people to introduce proposals to repeal categories of regulation rather than singular regulations. It's virtually impossible to dig up the specific names of regulations, so it would be much simpler to just enable people to propose "the repeal of all regulations mandating x standards for x product" and just have the Senate vote on that.

However, I understand that many Labor Senators may be uneasy with giving the Senate the hypothetical ability to repeal all labor regulations with a single vote, so I would be open to excepting certain regulatory domains.

And Polnut, you've got to be kidding me. I can't believe you're whining so hyperbolically about temporarily using one slot in the queue for a bill you admit will has no potential negative side effects.

[Deus Naturae]

So where are we now?

I'll post my amendment sometime today.

[Deus Naturae]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

To reiterate, I am willing to water down this amendment if it is too extreme for some. I just don't think this bill will be very effective if people have to search up the specific name of each regulation in order to propose it for repeal.

[Deus Naturae]

Alright, is everyone OK with this? I don't want this to go to a final vote and then fail because people think it's too extreme but don't speak up.

[Deus Naturae]

If you are uncomfortable with giving the Senate the power to repeal labor regulations in the manner in this bill prescribes I'm fine with that, just introduce an amendment.

Anyway, the point of this is just to create a comprehensive thread where we can easily discuss and vote on regulatory matters. If this is unsuccessful I will probably just introduce a bunch of deregulation bills and we'll discuss all of them separately.

[Deus Naturae]

Aye